Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Political clientelism is an intractable problem that neuters transparent governance and public accountability in Kenya. On the one hand, is the patron (ruler/politician), and on the other hand, a client (voter) who engages in a reciprocal exchange of tokens, monetary donations, and favors to extract benefits from one another. Often, the patron gains by garnering loyalty from voters, while the client may benefit from small rewards such as monetary gains and favors. Such a dyadic relationship yields an unequal reciprocal exchange between the two agents. The aim of this study is to investigate the extent to which political clientelism influences citizen inaction (quiescence) when demanding public accountability from their patrons in Kenya. The study applied a mixed-method technique. The primary data was collected from a sample of 100 respondents drawn from Nairobi City County using self-administered questionnaires. The data was analyzed using SPSS to perform both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed a direct relationship between political clientelism and citizen quiescence, yielding R(98) = 0.896, p < 0.05, and R2 0.803. The findings indicate that political clientelism could explain 80.3% of the variance in predicting citizen quiescence. In other words, the researchers concluded that citizens were less likely to demand more accountability from political leaders in an environment undergirded by high levels of clientelism.