District Creation in Kenya Under President Moi

In this chapter, I look at one form of decentralization that has been gaining popularity since the early 1980s – administrative unit proliferation, or the creation of new administrative units at higher rates than traditional administrative reasons suggest. Existing literature posits a local demand or patronage logic to explain this phenomenon. One overlooked aspect, however, is the effect of regime change. I argue that as countries transition towards democracy, new administrative units help a leader secure electoral votes in two ways: first, new units act as patronage. Local residents view new units as a gift directly from the leader and disproportionality benefit local leaders who are better able to broker votes in an upcoming election. Second, unit creation increases the spread of government officers who can coerce the population during elections. To evaluate this theory I turn to Kenya, where President Daniel arap Moi almost doubled the number of districts during Kenya’s first 10 years after the introduction of multi-party elections in 1992. Despite persistent demands for districts under Kenya’s previous one-party regime, I find that Moi only created new units in the run-up to his two re-election campaigns and primarily among swing areas. ∗I would like to thank Ashley Anderson, Bob Bates, Rohit Chandra, Daniel Honig, Kathleen Klaus, Steve Levitsky, Janet Lewis, Elizabeth Linos, Susanne Mueller, Noah Nathan and Daniel Ziblatt.