Book Reviews : Racial Bargaining in Independent Kenya. By DONALD ROTHCHILD. (London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Pp. ix, 467. $22.50.)
| Author | Maure L. Goldschmidt |
| Published date | 01 December 1974 |
| Date | 01 December 1974 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591297402700429 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
760
be
disputed
by
Nigerians
of
opposite
political
sympathies.
At
times
he
also
misses
an
angle
seemingly
important
to
a
political
scientist,
as
when
he
characterizes
one
of
Gowon’s
1970
planks
merely
as
the
&dquo;organization
of
political
parties,&dquo;
when
rather
Gowon’s
point
was
the
&dquo;genuinely
national&dquo;
parties
were
to
be
founded.
Nevertheless
it
is
overall
a
useful
book
which
can
help
introduce
a
wider
reader-
ship
to
a
portion
of
the
world
too
frequently
neglected
in
the
West.
University
of
Idaho
BERNARD
C.
BORNING
Racial
Bargaining
in
Independent
Kenya.
By
DONALD
ROTHCHILD.
(London:
Oxford
University
Press,
1973.
Pp.
ix,
467.
$22.50.)
The
study
of interethnic
relations
has
become
increasingly
important
in
recent
years
with
the
emergence
of
large
numbers
of
ethnically
heterogeneous
states
in
the
Third
World
and
the
intensification
of
ethnic
demands
in
developed
countries
such
as
Belgium,
Canada,
Britain
and
the
United
States.
Kenya
has
had
to
deal
with
two
kinds
of
ethnic
problems,
namely,
the
relations
between
its
many
African
tribes,
none
of
which
has
a
majority,
and
those
between
the
numerically
over-
whelming
Africans
and
the
economically
influential
groups
of
Europeans
and
Asians.
Professor
Rothchild
deals
with
the
latter
problem
in
such
a
comprehensive
and
insightful
way
that
his
book
will
undoubtedly
become
the
definitive
work
on
the
subject.
He
points
out
that
the
literature
on
African
inter-group
relations
emphasizes
cleavages
rather
than
links
and
tells
us
more
about
conflict
than
about
cooperation
and
reciprocity.
He
does
not
deny
the
importance
of
the
former but
wants
to
em-
phasize
the
fact
that
adjustment,
adaptation
and
bargaining
do
take
place.
Bargaining
in
Kenya
took
the
form
of
explicit
negotiation
in
the
period
im-
mediately
before
independence
when
Europeans
and
Asians
still
had
some
political
power,
but
became
tacit
once
political
power
was
completely
in
African
hands.
An
implicit
recognition
of
reciprocal
interests
continued
and
was
reflected
in
govern-
mental
decisions
which
tried
to
reconcile
the
demands
of
economic
development
with
those
of
corrective
group
equity.
Professor
Rothchild
describes
the
situation
confronting
the
newly
empowered
Kenya
government
as
one
of
extreme
inequality
in
which
Europeans
and
Asians
controlled
nearly
all
the
capital
and
appropriated
most
of
the
income.
A
major
goal
was
therefore
to
rectify
this
situation
in
the
interest
of
the
African
majority.
However,
the
pursuit
of
this
objective
has
had
to
be
tempered
by
the
requirements
of
growth.
Too
rapid
programs
of
Africanization
could
have
reduced
efficiency
and
discouraged
foreign
capital
investment.
The
author
develops
the
dialectical
interplay
between
the
pressures
of
African
nationalism
for
corrective
equity
and
the
responses
of
the
European
and
Asian
minorities
seeking
to
maintain
their
interests.
In
a
series
of
chapters
which
are
scrupulously
fair
in
describing
the
demands
of
both
sides
and
effectively
portray
the
dilemmas
confronting
them,
he
deals
first
with
the
crisis
of
citizenship
created
by
the
fears
of
the
minorities
that
Kenya
citizenship
would
not
be
as
useful
in
the
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