Wiping the state clean: The Dynamics of Diffusing Anti-Corruption Norms in Kenya.

摘要

What happens when an international norm encounters domestic politics? This dissertation examines the socialization and diffusion of the global war on corruption in Kenya to render an insight into how international norms are appropriated, transformed, and contested by local practices and discourses. First, I seek to capture the constitution of the international anti-corruption norms within the boundaries of international organizations, and its infiltration through national boundaries. Second, I comparatively examine how non-state advocacy groups operationalize and transform these international norms in local contexts. Third, I document the enactment of the global war on corruption in Kenya through an analysis of an anti-corruption campaign to end Harambee, community-based self-help associations that are said to predispose politicians to corruption. By tracing and connecting the various scales at which the anti-corruption movement operates and by reflecting on the consequential effect of its complex political encounters in Kenya, this dissertation illustrates how the restructuring influence of international norms is conditioned by politics "on the ground," and how international normative interventions (often inadvertently) engender new political dynamics while reinforcing existing practices.