The Experience of the National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) : Political Parties in Kenya from 1991 to 2007

This paper first examines splits and mergers among Kenya’s political parties (and inner-party factions) from the restoration of a multi-party system in 1991 until 2007, before the turbulent 10th general elections were conducted. It then considers what functions “political parties” have in Kenya with special reference to the period since 2002, the year in which President Moi announced his intention to retire. A look back at NARC’s five years of rule reveals that, although it succeeded in changing the government, NARC, as a “political party,” remained throughout an organization without any real substance. The paper looks at (1) NARC’s de facto split after its overwhelming win in the ninth general election, (2) malfunctions of the anti-defection laws that were introduced in the 1960s, and (3) Kenya’s election rules that require candidates to be nominated by registered political parties in general elections. The paper proceeds to argue that as a result of the operation of these three elements, Kenya’s political parties, and especially the victorious coalition sides, tend to end up being nothing more than temporary vehicles for political elites angling for post-election posts.

Search, matching, and self-organization of a marketplace

In many developing countries, clusters of small shops are the typical market-place. We investigate an economic model in which, between buyers and sellers in a marketplace, a circular causality including the search process produces agglomeration forces, given the initial location of the marketplace location exogenously in a linear city. We conclude that initial number of buyers and sellers is important in forming a large marketplace.

Temporary jobs and globalization

Deregulation of the use of temporary workers in 2004 (the Worker Dispatching Act of 2004) has been regarded as an important reason for the recent rise of temporary workers in Japan. However, the shift from permanent to temporary workers began long before. This paper empirically explores links between the shift from permanent to temporary workers in the Japanese manufacturing sector and economic globalization, using industry-level data. We find that outsourcing is positively correlated with the replacement of permanent workers with temporary workers in domestic production. In addition, we find that industries losing world share of value added tend to decrease the employment of permanent workers. Industries with higher exports or imports are aggressive in using temporary workers, which suggests the role of temporary workers as an employment buffer.