Countering Violent Extremism in Kenya : Community, State, and Security Perspectives

Before the rise of the Al-Shabaab, Eastern Africa was home to different organizational nodes of the Al- Qaeda network. Al-Qaeda was responsible for many threats, of which include the August 7, 1998 bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. As terrorism threats have evolved over the years, countermeasures have continued to do the same. Countering Violent Extremism in Kenya: Community, State, and Security Perspectives by John Mwangi explores Kenya’s historical experiences with terrorism in the pre and posts 9/11 periods as a lens to situate how different stakeholders present the threats of extremism and the associated counter-measures they consider as valuable. The stakeholders presented throughout this book include: security actors, society organizations, academics, and community members. Through extended ethnographic research and fieldwork collected from focus groups within Nairobi and Mombasa between 2016 and 2022, Mwangi offers an opportunity to observe the evolution of counter-terrorism interventions in Kenya and the dilemmas this has created around primarily state-society relations, an exploration of how different stakeholders perceive the efficacy of counter-terrorism measures, and the appraisal of counter-terrorism initiative (CT) interventions that render ongoing CVE interventions less effective.