Free and fair elections, accompanied by smooth transitions of democratically elected leaders, constitute one of the key pillars of democracy. The dawn of democratisation and advent of multi-party politics after the end of the Cold War in 1991, seemingly held great promise for Africa. However, in recent years, many elections in Africa have consistently become a source of violence. Electoral violence is threatening to become an intractable source of conflict on the African continent, making it hard for emerging democracies to consolidate their status as free democratic societies. Many remain largely autocratic or semi-democratic. African leaders are all too often not ready to relinquish political power, while political elites are ‘power hungry’ and use violence to skew the outcomes of elections in their favour. Hence, electoral violence is employed in order to manipulate civilian election choices and outcomes. Election violence is often deliberately used to target civilians, and in countries like Kenya involves inter-ethnic clashes. These “new wars” are fought unconventionally using ‘crude weapons’, (Kaldor 2013). Kaldor describes how these ‘new wars’ are fought as intra-state (within the state) wars in developing countries. Often, they are waged via state or county networks based on identity or ethnicity. The consequences of electoral violence include the destruction of property, reversed development, injuries, rape, death, internally displaced persons and refugees. Electoral violence persists despite attempts to contain it and measures to effectively manage these processes often prove to be inadequate. The study utilises an exploratory case study of Kenya during 2007-2008 Post-Election violence. The causes, the immediate steps that were initiated to mitigate violence and the reforms undertaken to generate peace structures and prevent future occurrences of post-election violence were explored. Forty-five participants representing involved citizens, negotiators and mediators were interviewed. The research was triangulated via the interview process, together with the use of primary document analysis and an extensive review of the literature. The data was analysed via the use of grounded theory. The research findings reveal that the causes of electoral violence are multi-faceted and multi-layered, with deep underlying issues. The causes include weak institutions, corruption, a non-representational electoral system, ethnicity and ethnic militia. Further causes include statelessness as experienced by certain groups, abuse of state resources and human rights violations. The role of political elites who withhold crucial information, thus denying the public the opportunity to make informed choices during elections was also found to contribute to electoral violence. Other information-related causes include biased media and sensational reporting. Findings also show that socio-economic issues such as poverty, unemployment, scarce resources and unmet basic human needs cannot be underestimated. Lastly, the causes of electoral violence included diverse interests of internal and external actors at play during elections. The findings revealed that although the Kenyan mediation process included the signing of a peace agreement, the root causes of electoral violence such as corruption, weak institutions, abuse of state resources and the unjust electoral system were not adequately addressed. A model for mediation for electoral violence which was explored and developed sought to build on the strengths of the Kenyan mediation process and address its inherent weaknesses, thus making this a significant contribution flowing from the study. The election model for mediation proposes certain key phases which include a pre-mediation process that will ensure a cessation of all hostilities; the mapping of the root causes of electoral violence and electoral reforms that provide resolutions that are acceptable to all the parties. Training of personnel at all levels of government to implement these reforms is also proposed. These measures can ensure the integrity and independence of electoral institutions from political manipulation. Training constitutes a crucial stage in the process of consolidating the emerging democracies. The model for mediation developed is therefore not only meant to mitigate electoral violence but is also intended to serve as a preventive measure. Many African states currently experience structural weaknesses similar to those that existed in Kenya before the 2007-2008 elections (and still persist). These fault lines include corruption, weak institutions, human rights violations, and lack of information. The proposed model for mediation which aims to counter these problems can thus be applied and adapted for implementation in Africa and globally. Several recommendations with implications for policy development are proposed to curb electoral violence. They include constitutional reforms, training of government and electoral officials and the introduction of a properly representational election system. This study, which focuses specifically on post-election violence, recommends further research investigating the pre-election phase, and ‘voting day’ causes of electoral violence for a more comprehensive approach to electoral violence research.

The reality today is that we are all interdependent and have to co-exist on this small planet therefore, the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of interests, whether between individuals or nations, is through dialogue --the Dalai Lama Nomadic pastoralist communities all over the world depend on the keeping livestock for their livelihood, and are characterized by constant migration, in search of pasture and water, or what others may call “search for greener pastures”. Most often as the case such as in Northern Kenya these communities or clans are in conflict with each other mainly over the same scarce resources- water and pasture. This particular treatise explores the role of local NGOs in managing such inter-clan conflict. As aptly put by Lewis (1981: 10-13), when grazing land is abundant, settlement patterns of the pastoral communities may include many non patrilineal kin, or other clans, the true patrilineal kin is honored when pressure arises in the form of diminishing water and pasture, in such instances those who are not one‟s clan become undesirable aliens, thus it is was not a surprise to witness, in the course of conducting the study the many sprouting settlements in Wajir County consisting of entirely agnatic kin, meant to protect “clan‟s” ideals at any costs. Intra-clan and inter-clan conflicts are thus common in the entire Northern Kenya; this study explores the management of inter-clan conflict in Wajir County, North Eastern Province of Kenya. In particular, this research offers an exploration and discussion of the sources of inter-clan conflict, the role of the local NGOs and the perceptions of the local communities, politicians, provincial administration and the local peace committees in the processes of the managing inter-clan conflicts by the local NGOs. With reference to relevant research and literature, as well as the researcher‟s good background understanding on the interventions of the local NGOs in Wajir County, this treatise will provide a series of recommendations to respond to the recurrent inter-clan conflict in the Wajir County, which to some extent could also be applicable to communities with similar settings in Africa and beyond.

The diversity of African Conflicts has become a field of inquiry and drawn the attention of many scholars who wish to theorize the origin of these conflicts. Such conflicts were perceived, in many ways, as originating from a colonial legacy. However, conflicts over natural resources have always played a role in human society, and have retarded socio-development in many countries. Guy Martin acknowledges that, over the last 40 years, Africa has been and continues to be one of the most conflict-ridden regions of the world; this has resulted in untold human suffering (Guy, 2002:185-188). This study focuses on resource conflicts and their outcomes on Public Administration as a discipline. The discussion offers a theoretical review of academic literature in combination with an analysis of the feature of resource conflicts and the relevant policies which govern conflict resolution and management. According to Terry et al (2007:32), “these two regions suffered from developmental and educational ignorance”. Most of the people living in this area are pastoralists; as such, the violence emanating from cattle rustling within Sudan and across its borders with Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia continues to erode their moral fabric. The remoteness of the area has caused it to be a landscape of conflicts and insecurity and might have been cause for the paralysis of public administration and, in turn, reflected in poor service delivery. During the course of the study, an orderly and systematic use of mixed methods was chosen, since quantitative and qualitative research methods were found to be complementary rather than oppositional approaches. Using both prominent and modest collection procedures, the methods employed in this study proved to be practical and useful. The study examines resource conflict between the Turkana of Kenya and the Toposa of South Sudan. It suggests practical strategies and mechanisms by which the problem will be ameliorated, here and elsewhere, in as far as providing effective and efficient service delivery to the community without fail.

Conflict is an inevitable occurrence in any human interaction setting and organisations are no exception. Communication is an essential an important aspect of conflict. People run organisations and without interaction through communication, organisational existence would be next to impossible. This dissertation aims to explore the role of interpersonal communication in managing peer co-worker conflict in a Non-Governmental organisation, SILC KENYA, Eldoret. This study adopted a qualitative case study. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect data from fifteen employees of the same hierarchical level. The study revealed various causes of conflict amongst the peer co-workers. Exchange of resources amongst peer co-workers was seen to better interpersonal relations in the workplace and it was further noted that interpersonal communication plays an important role in conflict management. The study recommends that peer co-workers should be equipped with interpersonal communication skills through frequent teambuilding activities and training workshops to aid in conflict management. / Communication Science / M. A. (Communication Science)