Literature Review

Literature Review
Summarize the current literature relevant on the problem Corruption and Election Fraud in Kenya.A literature review is an analytical essay containing an introduction (including a thesis and a research question), body (where you use research to support your issue and tie the resources back to your research question),and a conclusion.The purpose of a literature review is to summarize and synthesize the ideas of others in regard to your chosen issue-Corruption and Election Fraud in Kenya. Corruption and the Election Fraud in Kenya
In Kenya,the last four decades of independence has culminated into corruption. The nation has faced numerous economy-crippling scandals. Indeed,corruption has dominated every sector of public life sector in Kenya. According to Wahome (2001),the business community perceives corruption is the leading obstacle to the operations of the business environment. Indubitably, the country experiences different forms of corruption including grand, bureaucratical,embezzlement, and political patronages.     Democratic elections allow citizens improve governance by sanctioning delinquent leaders. Regrettably, despite the continued attempts to make politicians accountable to voters,citizens can seldom guarantee political accountability (Hassim, 1999). Indeed, the politicians usually undermine elections to remain in power. They manipulate the votes and curtail legal electoral processes especially when they recognize voters want them out. For this reason,elections in Africa, particularly in Kenya, fail accountability tests (Mueller, 2008). The trend of corruption and electoral fraud is of great concern and worth researching.
    Relevance of the Issue to the Real-World Practice of Politics
The world politics revolves around accountability and democracy.Callen and Long (2015) maintains that the democratic and accountability principles empower voters to identify and vote leaders who promise performance and service delivery. However, instilling accountability through an electoral process has proved knotty. The incumbent capitalizes the institutional deficiencies to manipulate election results so that they can cover for their brutality (Long & Long, 2012). Indeed, in an equilibrium democratic election, voters have powers to sanction delinquent leaders. For example, in Kenya,the institutional failures vitiate the election accountability mechanism. The uncertainty of winning a tightly competitive election compels both the incumbent and challenger to engage in fraud. The election fraud and corruption threaten the democratic consolidation and accountability (Mayfield, 1993).
It is a problem affecting many emerging democracies. For this reason, the issues are relevant the real-world practice of politics.  Modern African countries are the direct byproduct of what is historically known as the Scramble for Africa- the carving up of Africa into Nation-states based on political arrangements engineered by European colonizers. This has led to a myriad of politically contentious arrangements where ethnic groups with deep-rooted historical enmity found themselves stuck under one nation (ex. Tutsi,Hutu in Rwanda, Kikuyu and Luo in Kenya, and Yoruba and Hausa in Nigeria), while other ethnic groups found themselves scattered among several neighboring nations (ex. Oromos in Ethiopia and Kenya, Somalis in Kenya and in Somalia and Ethiopia, and Djibouti and Masai in Kenya and Tanzania).
It is also important to underscore that groups are born and then they dissipate over a certain period of time whereas other groups have a wider and indelible reach-when it comes to both elections and public policy choices. To me voting does matter indeed and that's the essence of democracy. The ramifications of free riders on voting in a country’s democratic system has enormous political repercussions,and,thus pose enormous challenges for that particular country's overall development and erodes citizens trust in government.
The research of Edward Miguel, a political scientist at Stanford University, “in an influential paper published in a leading journal, Miguel compared the impact of ethnic diversity on the provision of education in Kenya and Tanzania.” I strongly believe that the problem of free riders on voting is quite important and helpful within a broader context of today’s  social trends.
 Democracy,justice,and freedom, pose challenges for analysts to make objective assessments,particularly in the context of African politics because of the  impact of ethnic diversity more so in Kenya,Uganda and Tanzania. So it is very interesting topic to explore,and to understand how the  ramifications of Free Riders on voting in country's democratic system, especially so heavily in Sub-Sahara African countries.
References
Callen, M. & Long, J. D. (2015). Institutional corruption and election fraud: Evidence from a field experiment in Afghanistan. American Economic Review, 105(1), 354-381.
Hassim, S. (1999). Agenda: Empowering women for gender equity. Citizenship, 40, 6-17. Retrieved from http://blog.transparency.org/2009/09/23/gcr2009_privatesector/
 Long, J .D. & Long, J. D. (2012). Voting, fraud, and violence: Political accountability in African elections.  UC San Diego: b7625449. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2bs339cm
Mayfield, L. (1993). Voting fraud in early twentieth-century Pittsburg. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24, 59-94.
Mueller, S. (2008). The political economy of Kenya’s crisis. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2, 2.
Wahome, M. (2001, Jun 28). Kenya ranked fourth in graft. Daily Nation. Retrieved from http://www.nationaudio.com/News/DailyNation/28062001/News/News58.html