Lancaster Constitutional Negotiation Process and its Impact on Foreign Relations of Post-Colonial Kenya, 1960-1970

Abstract

Kenya‘s independence constitution of 1963 was a negotiated document that was expected to provide a framework capable of embodying the interests of all groups in a sustainable manner. These groups had emerged on racial lines and were involved in racial tensions pitting on the one hand Africans who had been forcibly dispossessed of their lands and displaced, and on the other the white settlers who had a mission of turning Kenya into a ―white man‘s country‖. Between them were the Asian immigrants who dominated the fields of commerce and professional services, and who sought racial parity in governance. The tensions intensified when the British government declared its intension to grant independence under majority rule. Independence implied that a new constitutional dispensation had to be negotiated between the British government, the declining settler-based colonial order, and the African nationalists. Negotiations took place in a series of conferences that were held in Lancaster House, London, and at Government House, Nairobi, in 1960, 1962 and 1963. At the end of the negotiation process, a constitution was promulgated that was expected to provide an effective instrument of governance in the new independent nation. However, the constitutional document immediately became a subject of amendments whereby eleven amendments were enacted between 1963 and 1969. This study sets out to investigate why, despite being negotiated, Kenya‘s independence constitution was subjected to so many amendments within such a short time, and the implications of the negotiation process on governance and foreign relations. The study has three objectives. First is to examine and analyse the background and nature of the 1963 Kenya constitutional negotiation process and the resultant agreement. Second is to demonstrate how the dynamics of the negotiation process influenced the outcome and shaped the foreign policy direction and governance of a newly independent state. Thirdly is to evaluate the correlation between the composition of the actors and their divergent interests and its impact on subsequent constitutional amendments,

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foreign relations and nature of governance. The Theories of Political Realism, Dependency and Classical Pluralism are used to explain the connection between power and interests, and to account how power was applied in the negotiation process. The assumptions of the study are that the process and outcome of negotiations is determined by the context, typology of actors and nature of the divergent interests being negotiated, the amendments to the constitution after independence were the result of the failure of the negotiations process to address and secure the interests of the recipients of the constitution, and preservation and sustainability of a constitution largely depends on the perceptions, interpretation and the shifting hegemonic interests of the power wielders at any given time. The study‘s thesis is that the negotiation process had implications on governance and foreign policy direction in Kenya, and that the British government, which occupied a position of power as the coloniser, played a paternalistic role in the pursuit of its long-term interests in a power-based negotiation process. Qualitative data was collected through documentary analysis and key informant approaches and was subjected to content analysis. The data revealed that Britain used its relative power to control the negotiation process resulting in a fundamentally flawed process and a constitution that was not sustainable. Moreover, the negotiation process drew Kenya into the Western side of the ideological divide amid the dynamics of the Cold War.