Introduction

Lafargue, Jéróme

doi:10.4000/eastafrica.661

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Kenyan elections are known to have been relatively competitive under the one-party rule (Barkan & Okumu, 1978) and to have brought a change in power in 2002 (Oyugi et al, 2003). At the same time, they are high stakes political moments and have been sparking violence since 1992 (Throup & Hornsby, 1992), with a climax in 2007-2008 that remains in everyone’s mind (Lafargue, 2008). This violent event, enmeshed in ethnic conflicts over national political power, serves as an ideal setting for a narrative of the history of technology as a solution to deep crises: an actor of a modernity that evokes national unity against the violence of local power (Poggiali, 2017).…”

Section: Making Electoral Transparency Through Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The standard narrative on the introduction of digital technologies in Kenyan elections claims that it was the curative measure after the 2007-2008 post-election violence. 17 During these elections, the opposition contested incumbent President Mwai Kibaki’s victory, and accusations of electoral fraud escalated into an unprecedented crisis in which more than 1,100 Kenyans died and 500,000 were displaced (Lafargue, 2008). However, the genealogy of voting technologies is longer and dates back before 2007.…”

Section: Before the 2017 Election: The Irresistible Rise Of The Techn...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The (un)making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

Passanti

Pommerolle

2022

Soc Stud Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Marked by the killing of a senior ICT professional working for the Electoral Commission and the invalidation of the presidential election by the Supreme Court, the 2017 Kenyan elections make for a good case through which to study how digital technologies shape contemporary electoral practice. This article examines the practice of electoral transparency through technology and argues that it can be conceived as a socio-technical device based both on distancing people from knowledge of the electoral infrastructure and on staging a simplified discourse on public access to the electoral infrastructure. Drawing on interviews with key actors in election technology implementation and ethnographic observations of public events around it, the article argues that digital technology has had three sets of implications for elections. First, it has shaped the electoral infrastructure and the nature of the final result (now a paper and digital hybrid). Second, it has shaped the distribution of knowledge among electoral professionals, giving a central role to ICT actors, objects, and knowledge in the definition of electoral transparency. Third, the centrality of ICTs in elections and the order of knowledge they bring are highly controversial and criticized by other electoral actors who demand for material proof for understanding the inner workings of elections.

show abstract

Section: Making Electoral Transparency Through Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Before the 2017 Election: The Irresistible Rise Of The Techn...mentioning

confidence: 99%