PEACEW RKS

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT 

EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Lauren Van Metre

[ [
Cover photo: People carry placards as they attend 

a memorial concert for the Garissa University 

students who were killed during an attack by 

gunmen, at the “Freedom Corner” in Nairobi, 

Kenya on April 14, 2015. Kenya gave the United 

Nations three months to remove Dadaab camp, 

housing 350,000 registered Somali refugees, as 

part of its response to the killing of 148 people in 

nearby Garissa by a Somali Islamist group. 

Reuters/Thomas Mukoya Image ID: rtr4xbqv.

The views expressed in this report are those of the 

author alone. They do not necessarily reflect the 

views of the United States Institute of Peace.

United States Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Ave., NW

Washington, DC 20037

Phone: 202.457.1700

Fax: 202.429.6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org

Peaceworks No. 122. First published 2016.

ISBN: 978-1-60127-615-5

© 2016 by the United States Institute of Peace

About the Report

Focusing on six urban neighborhoods in Kenya, this 

report explores how key resilience factors have prevented 

or countered violent extremist activity at the local level. It 

is based on a one-year, mixed-method study led by the 

United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and supported by 

Sahan Research.

About the Author

Lauren Van Metre, PhD, led the Applied Research Center 

at USIP and currently conducts research and writing 

on community resilience to violence in Ukraine and 

Kenya. She directed USIP’s grant programs, working with 

researchers worldwide to build evidence for successful 

interventions against electoral and extremist violence.
PEACEWORKS • SEPTEMBER 2016 • NO. 122

CONTENTS

Introduction ... 5

Key Terms ... 7

Methodology ... 10

Data Collection and Analysis ... 19

Findings ... 20

Community Resilience Stories ... 28

Overall Findings ... 36

Recommendations ... 38

[Communities facing violent extremist threats need to

develop resilience capacities and strategies. Without 

commensurate capacity and action, threats can overwhelm 

even highly resilient communities.]

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COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Summary

■ Over the years, Kenya has conveyed an idyllic public image of a peaceful society in a region 

of conflict-ridden states. A much more contested narrative of a violent past exists, 

however.

■ Despite initiatives related to Christian-Muslim conflicts in the 1990s, a new regional 

security threat emerged, mainly revolving around the activities of al-Shabaab.

■ Groups like al-Shabaab understand and use a combination of political realities, socioeconomic factors, and individual characteristics that render many vulnerable to recruitment.

■ Qualitative studies show a relationship between heavy-handed counterterrorism operations by security forces and radicalization of Kenya’s Muslim population.

■ A paradox has emerged, where emphasis on winning the hearts and minds of target populations has collided with the dominance of hard military and security approaches to 

countering violent extremism.

■ The challenge with a concept like resilience to violence, which is both ambiguous and 

dynamic, is—for analytical purposes—to identify a concrete and measurable relationship. 

■ Communities that prevent the emergence of violent conflict, or rebound more quickly 

after it, have everyday capacities to successfully harness against extremist violence. 

■ Communities with genuine associations with religious members from different groups 

experience less violent extremist activity. 

■ Fluid religious and ethnic identities, which might lead to higher tolerance of and openness 

to members of other religions and tribal groups, do not explain community resilience to 

violent extremism.

■ Communities facing violent extremist threats need to develop resilience capacities and 

strategies. Without commensurate capacity and action, threats can overwhelm even highly 

resilient communities. 

■ Heavy-handed security approaches not only increase the risk of violent extremist activity, 

they also undermine community resilience factors and relationships.

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COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Introduction

Violent extremism often spreads through localized conflict in which extremist groups manipulate local grievances to gain position and traction. Both the international community and national 

governments have long had difficulty working in such small-scale and diverse contexts because of 

how rapidly conflict dynamics, cultural factors, and scale and sustainability issues change. Mitigating and preventing extremist violence effectively may demand new approaches, such as resilience practice, that emphasize community adaptation and collective action. Understanding how 

communities undermine and regulate violent extremist groups contributes to a more accurate 

assessment of local risk and vulnerability and improved, targeted support. Core capacities and 

successful strategies identified across communities could form an evidence-based foundation for 

successful prevention programming in and beyond Kenya.

This study builds on Ashutosh Varshney’s research on community resilience to communal 

violence in India, Ami Carpenter’s analysis of the resilience of Baghdad communities to sectarian violence, and Marshall Wallace and Mary Anderson’s comparative analysis of nonwar 

communities.1 These studies show consensus on aspects of resilience, but each study also makes 

unique contributions. For example, all three note the importance of both bridging relationships 

among diverse community groups in preventing or mitigating violence and collective efficacy, or a 

community’s belief that it has the power to achieve shared goals. Wallace and Anderson make a 

special contribution in identifying the importance of specific leadership styles. Carpenter identifies the crucial role of overlapping ties, or relationships community groups have with groups 

outside their community. For example, sectarian groups entered Baghdad communities based 

on familial relations between rural and urban tribes. In aggregating their findings, this study 

tests a framework for community resilience to violent extremism.

Kenya was selected as the study site because it is accessible and relatively safe and because it has 

a growing extremist problem. Since the military’s invasion of Somalia, Kenya has seen an increase 

in activity, including violent attacks, by Somali-based Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, commonly known as al-Shabaab; recruitment for the war in Somalia; the radicalization of youth; the 

infiltration of local mosques; and illicit financial transactions. At the same time, the heavy-handed 

security response to growing levels of violent extremism has antagonized Kenya’s local communities and angered youth, increasing their vulnerability to radicalization and recruitment. The experience of Kenya demonstrates again the need for effective prevention alternatives to traditional law 

enforcement and intelligence approaches to violent extremism and terrorism.

Over the years, Kenya has conveyed an idyllic public image of a peaceful society in a region of 

conflict-ridden states. A much more contested narrative of a violent past exists, however, deriving 

from Kenya’s wars of colonial resistance in the late nineteenth century and of independence in 

the 1950s. Immediately following independence, a violent outburst against Kenya’s first postcolonial government erupted, supported mainly by residents of the Somali-dominated northeastern 

region (then known as the Northern Frontier District). The official response, known as the Shifta 

(bandit) War, included a state of emergency that lasted until 1991. During this period, reports 

emerged of state-led massacres against residents of the Mandera (1981), Wajir (1984), and 

Garissa (1983) counties. 

On the Kenyan coast, a less violent confrontation with Kenya’s postcolonial government 

involved demands for secession of an undefined territory, supported mainly by the region’s Swahili (Afro-Arab) and Arab-Muslim populations. The supporters of what became known as the 

Mwambao (coastline) Movement feared potential alienation and disruption of their culture by 

the government of an independent Kenya dominated by up-country Christian elites. Coastal 

Mitigating and preventing 

extremist violence 

effectively may demand new 

approaches, such as resilience 

practice, that emphasize 

community adaptation and 

collective action. 
6 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Muslim politics would remain quiet until 1991, when the Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK) was 

formed in Mombasa.

The official criminalization and co-optation of Muslim activists in the mid-1990s occurred 

at the same time that extremist groups operating out of Somalia and Sudan increased their interlinked and underground planning and strategizing. These groups became responsible for many 

attacks in the region.2 The earliest one known was the al-Ittihad al-Islami, a Somali Islamist 

and nationalist political group with links to al-Qaeda. With the help of former IPK activists, 

al-Qaeda set up its East African cell in Kenya during the 1990s, which staged two major attacks 

in Kenya in 1998 and 2002. After these attacks, Kenya became a recipient of significant financial 

and logistical aid from Western countries (particularly the United States and United Kingdom) 

and was seen as an important ally in America’s Overseas Contingency Operations, more commonly known as the global war on terrorism.

Despite these initiatives, a new regional security threat emerged, mainly revolving around 

the activities of al-Shabaab. The first Kenyan recruit of al-Shabaab is reported to have left for 

Somalia in early 2007, a year after the group was formed. In March and December 2011, Kenyan 

authorities released the names and photographs of Kenyan suspects who allegedly had either 

been trained in Somalia or were believed to have left the al-Shabaab stronghold of Kismayo to 

carry out attacks in Kenya. A decision was also made in 2011 to send the Kenyan Defense Forces 

to Somalia to tame this threat.

Following the Kenya-Somalia intervention, al-Shabaab proceeded to make real its threat of 

retaliatory attacks, launching about one hundred fifty operations inside Kenya and vowing not 

to stop until the government withdrew its troops from Somalia. Most of these attacks have been 

launched by Kenyan nationals, who joined the membership ranks of al-Shabaab through an 

expanding al-Shabaab Kenyan network that was mostly active from 2009 to 2012, as noted in 

reports of the United Nations monitoring group for Somalia and Eritrea. This network included 

a series of notable mosques and preachers: Masjid Musa in Majengo, Mombasa; Pumwani 

Riyadha Mosque in Pumwani, Nairobi; and Masjid Al-Ahmar Mosque in Eastleigh, Nairobi.

The success of this network, particularly in the recruitment of Kenyans, rests on a pervasive 

and well-circulated victimization narrative that has gained traction on the basis of unaddressed 

historical injustices, particularly socioeconomic and political exclusion, skewed development, 

and past injustices around land allocation. Groups like al-Shabaab understand and make use 

of a combination of political realities, socioeconomic factors, and individual characteristics that 

render many people, especially youth, vulnerable to recruitment.

In countering this new security threat, a paradox has emerged, where emphasis put on the 

significance of winning the hearts and minds of target populations has collided with the dominance of hard military and security approaches to countering violent extremism (CVE). The 

most prominent of these include Kenya’s Operation Linda Nchi and subsequent involvement 

in the African Union Mission in Somalia and the operations of the Anti-Terror Police Unit. 

Many actors in this new but rapidly expanding field—a much debated concept referring to a 

broad range of preventative and noncoercive initiatives—decry the impacts of hard military and 

security approaches in fostering radicalization and mobilization to violence. Despite the paucity 

of empirical evidence, qualitative studies show a relationship between heavy-handed counterterrorism operations by security forces and the radicalization of the minority Muslim population 

in Kenya.

Replication of this study—its terms, concepts, and identified resilience capacities—could 

lead to a more generalized understanding of community resilience that could in turn significantly inform CVE practice and programs. This larger effort will determine whether resilience 
USIP.ORG 7

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

capacities and competencies are the same for different types of violence or whether different 

capacities are required to regulate, for example, political violence versus violent extremism.

Key Terms

In thinking about and approaching violent extremism, and thus harnessing the capacities and 

actions of front-line communities, a common understanding of terminology and concepts is 

critical to national and international actors. 

Ideology

What distinguishes violent extremism from other forms of violence (whether secessionist, 

criminal, or something else) is that extremism is at its core an ideological struggle, as opposed 

to other types of contestation, such as those over land or resources. What is ideology in the first 

place? What makes an ideology an extremist ideology?

Although no universal definition of ideology is agreed upon, the one Paul Steger and Manfred 

James propose is useful: ideologies are “patterned clusters of normatively imbued ideas and concepts, including particular representations of power relations. These conceptual maps help people 

navigate the complexity of their political universe and carry claims to social truth.” 

3

 In other words, 

ideology is an all-encompassing worldview that presupposes its own political and social truth, 

most often in relation to other ideological frameworks.

Extremist Ideology

What differentiates ideology from extremist ideology? The distinction sometimes used for 

extremism (as being far from the norm) is a loaded definition: “Most simply, [extremism] can 

be defined as activities (beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions, strategies) of a character far removed 

from the ordinary.” 

4

 If, for example, the ideology of the Islamic State has become accepted 

in certain parts of Iraq and Syria, does it follow that the ideology is no longer extremist?

To avoid this normative trap, this study defines extremist ideology as ideology that has 

become inflexible and dogmatic. Extremist ideology is all-consuming and cannot accept or 

coexist with other ideologies.5 The goal is ultimately to eradicate other ideologies and belief 

systems and those who adhere to them. The relative support enjoyed by any ideology—extremist 

or not—is outside the scope of this study’s research question. Two quotes further illustrate this 

understanding of extremist ideology:

Supporters of extremist movements tend to be fanatical, intolerant, noncompromising, 

and single-minded, believing that only they are in possession of “truth” and that they 

alone have the solution to pressing social problems.6

Ideological extremists turn a deaf ear to the cognitive dissonance of signals that contradict their analysis of reality.7

Extremist ideologies can be political, religious, economic, environmental, or social. They do 

not presuppose any one doctrine or type of doctrine. However, the existence of a noncompromising ideology is central to extremism.

This distinction has political and practical ramifications. For example, in Kenya, the 

Mombasa Republican Council, which could be described as employing terrorist field techniques, 

according to this definition, is separatist and not extremist because it is focused on a discrete set of 

political or territorial goals and not on an all-consuming political ideology. So, notably, terrorism 

and extremism are not synonymous under this view.

The existence of a 

noncompromising ideology 

is central to extremism.
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PEACEWORKS 122

Extremist ideology is not just about the ideology itself, but the way adherents would like 

to see it implemented. Most often, this implementation comes through coercion and violence.

Violent Extremism

The 2011 White House strategy to counter domestic extremism defines violent extremists 

as “individuals who support or commit ideologically motivated violence to further political 

goals.”8 This study considers the appeal or pressure of violent extremist groups and moves 

beyond isolated individuals who may become radicalized. Again, with this understanding of 

violent extremism, this study focuses on groups who describe their violence as motivated by 

an inflexible, extremist ideology: “The core problem that extremism presents in situations of 

protracted conflict is...the closed, fixed, and intolerant nature of extremist attitudes, and their 

subsequent imperviousness to change.”9

Resilience

Resilience, for this study, does not refer to the restoration of the status quo, but rather to learning 

and adaptation. Resilience is the ability of a community, people, state, or region to adopt new processes, norms, and strategies for conducting their lives and new societal relationships in response 

to a violent shock or uptick in aggression and brutality in order to prevent, mitigate, or recover 

from violence. These innovative ways of relating and functioning demonstrate the capacity of a 

social system to self-organize, the implication being that certain parts or subsystems may become 

irrelevant or transform as a community seeks to establish a new peaceful equilibrium. Adaptation 

in the face of change may drive not only new structures and relationships within the system but 

also new functions. For example, if the function of a state-community system is to maintain a 

mutual relationship to provide citizen security, and the state security institutions begin to erode 

or disintegrate, then a community can self-organize to replicate the system’s security function. To 

effectively analyze resilience in complex, adaptive systems, it is vital to understand “the resilience 

of what system or sub-system to what change.”10

The systems perspective has gained significant attention in recent years. In 2013, the 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) published “A Framework for Analyzing 

Resilience in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States.”11 Rather than focusing on the individual 

and group levels of analysis, the study took a systems approach, hypothesizing that five types 

of external shocks—economic, environmental, security, political, and social—interact with one 

another and with three bases of community resilience—institutions, resources, and adaptive 

facilitators—to produce systemic outcomes. This framework helps bridge the levels of analysis 

problem and illuminates the complexity of resilience: “Instead of detailing a linear cause and 

effect relationship, the complex systems approach examines the influence/impact of interacting 

factors in response to a shock or stress.”12 Despite the undoubtedly many causal pathways to 

extremism for individuals and communities, a systems approach helps illuminate the varying 

risk and resilience factors in particular situations.

Resilience to Violence

Studies of resilience to violence are not new, but they are limited. In Varshney’s seminal work 

on the relationship between the structure of civil society and the outbreak of ethnic violence 

in India, he studied six cities broken down into three pairs coupled by similar ethnic makeup

to analyze why, when experiencing an exogenous shock, one community within each pair 
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COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

remained peaceful and the other did not. His conclusion was that cities with institutionalized 

peace systems could absorb such shocks without outbreaks of communal violence. Although 

Varshney does not explicitly focus on resilience, his conceptual framework does relate closely 

to the formulation of resilience and adaptive systems. An important component of community resilience to violence is existing local networks of civic engagement among ethnic groups. 

Associational forms of civic engagement (that is, organized networks bound together by working trust across ethnic groups, such as business associations, labor unions, and organized clubs) 

are more resilient to violence than intercommunal quotidian, or daily associations, such as interactions at markets, soccer games, or festivals.

In Carpenter’s assessment of the sectarian conflict in Baghdad, she identifies a two-part 

framework for conflict resilience: regime characteristics—“the strengths and abilities of a system 

that enable it to respond adaptively to change” and community competence—“the ability of a 

system to modify or change characteristics or behavior to cope better with actual or anticipated 

stresses.” The general capacities, or regime characteristics, that Iraqi communities tapped into 

for resilience to sectarian violence include 

• political and social structures—salient norms, social institutions and networks, and the 

political system;

• economic resources—economic resources to sustain community well-being, capacity to 

adapt to the changing environment through access to diversified economic assets, and 

proximity to strategically important economic assets (transportation hubs, trade 

routes, infrastructure);

• information and communication—sources of information, spaces for sharing information, and interpretation of events by and communicative ability of leaders; and

• social capital—sense of community, citizen participation, and community attachment 

that enable people to work together for a common purpose.13

When citizens had the capacities to self-organize, their communities were able to resist sectarian groups. This community competence has both psychological and behavioral components. 

The psychological aspects of resilience include collective efficacy and inward orientation—a 

perspective on community security that motivates residents to protect neighborhood boundaries (as opposed to competitive strategies against perceived adversaries that would lead to a spiral 

of attacks and counterattacks). The behavioral components are the strategies communities adopt 

in the face of sectarian violence:

• organizing nonsectarian security groups,

• preventing neighborhood security groups from adopting sectarian identities,

• advocating violence prevention, and

• patrolling neighborhood borders.14

An underlying theme of Carpenter’s work is “the relationship of resilience to brittleness, which 

highlights that flexibility is often a key quality of resilience”; rigidity or hardening of perspectives 

occurs as conflict escalates, especially in relation to how groups or individuals begin to perceive 

the other.15 Group changes, such as evaluating interactions with the other in zero-sum terms, are 

driven by a cognitive and emotional stiffening (such as dehumanization, reduced empathy, deindividuation) as a result of exposure to violence. With this in mind, resilience understood as flexibility

is a great inhibitor against inflexible (violent) extremist ideology.

Marshall Wallace and Mary Anderson’s comparative case study of bright spots—communities that should have succumbed to violence due to proximity or characteristics (demography, 

An important component 

of community resilience 

to violence is existing 

local networks of civic 

engagement among 

ethnic groups.
10 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

economic status, and the like) shared with warring neighbors but did not—identifies a set of 

common capacities and strategies that enabled them to opt out of war. Their analysis studied 

collective action; communities that were resilient to violence analyzed, strategized, and responded 

using inclusive and transparent processes. There was no denial or prevarication. These communities conducted a collective calculation of the costs of violence versus nonviolence, developed 

options, adopted a pragmatic nonwar identity that resonated with their culture and history, 

and communicated group values that distanced them from war and violence. They collectively 

organized early warning systems and other activities based on relative risk and remained cohesive 

in the face of threats, keeping community life normal. They did not take the fight to external 

fighters, but rather focused on community solidarity and survival. According to Wallace and 

Anderson, the key factor in a community’s capacity to opt out of war is legitimate leadership. 

Leaders who had established extensive networks in the community, regularly engaged with 

residents, and valued brainstorming and problem solving with community members were critical 

to resisting war.16

Risk Factors

Recognizing that risk factors for violent extremism are commonly separated into push (structural 

or environmental) and pull (individual recruitment) categories, this report examines risk factors 

more holistically because a resilient community may be able to withstand both. Both push and 

pull factors are relevant to recruitment, but CVE programming seems to focus predominantly 

on pull factors. Community-level risk factors, however, are most often push factors. For example, 

poorly governed areas, violation of a group’s rights, and protracted local conflicts are all push 

factors against which a community may develop and exercise resilience. Push factors such as 

endemic corruption, harsh government repression and human rights violations, and youth marginalization and underemployment are likely to be present in most if not all of the sites under 

study in Kenya, combined with certain pull factors. One example of an often-seen communitylevel pull factor was a misinterpretation of Islam, perpetuated by charismatic leaders in mosques 

or muhadharas (street corner religious debates). This study tested the prevalence of push and pull 

factors in Kenyan urban communities, using drivers identified by USAID.17

Methodology

The primary objectives of this study were, first, to test and further develop a nuanced analytical 

framework for community-level resilience to violent extremism to better understand community 

vulnerability and risk and resilience capacities and, second, to determine whether significant or 

correlated resilience factors identified across communities directly limit or mitigate the activities 

of violent groups. To accomplish this, the research, which was conducted in Nairobi and Mombasa, sought to understand the interplay between community capacity and strategies by comparing communities that had similar risk factors (push and pull) but different experiences (some 

were resistant to violent extremism and others not). Although many resilience studies focus on 

a static list of characteristics of resilient communities, this report recognizes that resilience encompasses a process of learning and adaptation. As Carpenter writes, “Community is not simply urban 

space—it is what people do within that space.”18 In short, resilience is a noun and a verb. Thus, 

both the structural and agent-centered sources of community resilience to violent extremism 

should be examined. The drivers were tested as an initial list of risk factors, with community 

members self-identifying which ones are evident in their communities.

Resilience encompasses 

a process of learning 

and adaptation.
USIP.ORG 11

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

The Control

Controlling for other factors to explain the differentiation in violent extremist activity was 

essential to determine which resilience factors or combination of factors made the difference. 

Structured as a comparative study, the team selected and paired six neighborhoods to measure 

the impact of resilience factors on the dependent variable (the level of violent extremist activity) 

(see table 1).

Neighborhoods with similar levels of risk (push and pull) and shared externalities—for 

example, geography (proximity to strategic assets, urban or rural); demography (population levels 

and ethnic and class composition); and governance structures (shared administration at the local 

and national levels)—were paired to narrow the analytical focus to resilience capacities, strategies, and tactics. This helped isolate resilience factors from other factors, such as one community, 

and not another, being proximate to a strategic asset or porous border. The neighborhoods paired 

were similar in terms of ethnicity, age demographics, and religious diversity; were geographically 

proximate; and had shared systems of political administration. Regarding the dependent variable, 

Pumwani, Tononoka, and Kongowea were identified as having relatively lower levels of violent 

extremist activity in comparison to Eastleigh, Majengo, and Kisauni.

For group 2, the principal research instruments—community surveys and focus group 

discussions—revealed that though the study could control for first-order externalities (physical 

location, proximity to strategic assets, demographics, economic status, and governance), it could 

not control for second-order externalities. For example, Tononoka’s middle class was primarily 

ex-government workers. This meant that the community enjoyed good relations with national 

and county (devolved) government officials and strong collective efficacy. Therefore, based on 

analysis of the survey and qualitative data, Tononoka and Majengo were not found to be similarly 

at risk for violent extremism. Thus, it was the difference in risk that explained the different levels 

of violent extremist activity in these two communities, eliminating group 2 as a control group for 

determining and analyzing community resilience factors.

Mombasa

Land claims in Kisauni have been highly contested, shaping both its politics and social relations. 

The area, situated north of Mombasa Island, was marked an agricultural zone during the colonial 

period. At the end of this period, freehold titles were issued to a group of Arab families (or those 

Similar Risk 

and Externalities

More 

Violent Extremism

Less 

Violent Extremism

Group 1: Nairobi Eastleigh Pumwani

Group 2: Mombasa Majengo Tononoka

Group 3: Mombasa Kisauni Kongowea

Table 1. Community Pairings

Source: Author’s compilation
12 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

who were thought to have Arab ancestry) for agriculture. However, most of these families did 

not proceed to live on or use the land for agricultural purposes. Groups of hinterland communities (mostly Mijikenda) moved in as peasants, entering into patron-clientage relationships with 

the Arab landowners. This development laid the foundation for a protracted contestation, with 

the Mijikenda claiming primacy over the land based on ancestry and Arab landowners claiming 

legal ownership. Much later, the Mijikenda (a group of nine ethnicities, including traditionalists, 

Christians, and Muslims) were joined by the Bajuni (a Muslim community originating from the 

Lamu archipelago area), other coastal groups, and up-country groups. These newcomer groups 

bought the land and built rental houses, or some just rented. The area developed without much 

state intervention and, therefore, became characterized by highly informal housing, social, and 

economic sectors.

Kongowea, like Kisauni, has a diverse community but with more Christians than Muslims 

and more youth. Following the preelectoral violence in 1997 in Kenya—targeting up-country 

residents (mostly Luo and Luhya) in Likoni (a neighborhood south of Mombasa Island)—

Kongowea experienced a notable increase in its population as people moved from Likoni. 

Immediately after, villages with a distinctive up-country outlook were established within Kongowea, evident by some of their names (such as Kisumu Ndogo, or small Kisumu, named after 

the lakeside city of Kisumu). Due to its location, the Kongowea market, Mombasa’s largest 

market, then became dominated by up-country business people, who have connections with a 

much more fertile up-country Kenya, mostly bringing in to Mombasa vegetable produce and 

fruit. Older settlements in Kongowea still exist—Muslim communities of Swahili, Bajuni, and 

Arab descent—but with a recent in-migration of up-country communities, some of these earlier 

residents have relocated to other parts of Mombasa and the coast.

Majengo, like Majengo in Nairobi, developed in two phases. In the 1920s, it was an old 

informal settlement of potters, casual laborers, and petty traders, with most of the land owned as 

freehold by the then colonial governor of Mombasa. As the local economy expanded throughout 

the colonial period, most of the land was appropriated for public works (for example, the building of schools, roads, the government clinic, the chief’s post) and sold to private developers for 

the building of rental houses, thus ushering in the second phase of Majengo’s development. This 

phase of new building, particularly after World War II, gave the place the name Majengo (which 

is Swahili for “buildings”). The inhabitants, most of whom had lived in the area for an extended 

period of time, had mostly become “detribalized” and Islamized, and most were categorized as 

Swahilis and a few as Arabs. This gave Majengo its distinctively Islamic character, similar only to 

the Kibokoni (old town) neighborhood of Mombasa. Majengo’s population has been increasing, 

with residents originating from up-country Kenya and Somalia. This migration, in some ways, is 

fueling the ongoing marginalization of Majengo residents, as the somewhat dynamic up-country 

groups are rapidly changing the area’s social makeup.

Tononoka is an old civil servants estate with smaller sections of informal settlements 

of coastal townspeople or “detribalized natives” (variously referred to as Wamiji or Swahili). 

Because of the presence of civil servant families and older inhabitants, the number of Christians and Muslims is about equal. Tononoka has experienced a significant influx of newcomers, 

some claiming themselves to now be the majority. In Tononoka, traditional Swahili housing, 

essentially residential compounds, has been preserved. Here, newcomers, primarily up-country 

immigrants, live together with established Tononoka families and associate across ethnic and 

religious lines.
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Nairobi

Eastleigh has long been a Somali settlement—first in the 1920s by demobilized soldiers from 

the King’s African Rifles. However, these ethnic Somalis were largely drawn from British 

Somaliland and, as such, present a different clan profile than those from Kenya’s northeast. 

Urbanization accelerated after independence, Eastleigh’s Somali population augmented by 

large numbers of settlers from the Kenyan countryside (up-country) who flocked to towns in 

search of economic and other opportunities. Eastleigh’s population also includes a large refugee 

population from surrounding countries after the regional conflict of the 1990s. This refugee 

population also includes nationals from Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, and the Democratic 

Republic of the Congo. Muslims, mostly Somali, are the predominant religious group, though 

Christians are also well represented.

Pumwani, like Eastleigh, was one of the earliest urban settlements in Nairobi, settled largely 

by Muslim demobilized soldiers from the Kenyan coast. These settlers are seen as indigenous 

to Pumwani, particularly to the Majengo neighborhood. Today, Pumwani maintains its original 

Muslim identity, although urban migration has augmented the original settler populations with 

largely Christian immigrants from the Kenyan hinterland. Pumwani therefore has a mixed ethnic and religious demographic. However, despite their early settlement of the area, Pumwani’s 

coastal Muslim indigenes have been increasingly displaced by their up-country counterparts 

who today dominate economic opportunities in the area, particularly in the sprawling Gikomba 

market, the most vibrant economic center in the area. Pumwani community members are now 

consigned to informal and short-term labor as porters and garbage collectors.

This study was conducted only in urban sites and in communities removed from the KenyaSomalia border. The initial intent was to include two rural communities in Kenya’s north, but 

the attacks on the University of Garissa and general concerns for the security of enumerators 

and their ability to conduct community surveys and focus groups led to a reconsideration. The 

research findings, therefore, have limited application and should not be applied broadly to dissimilar environments.

The Inquiry

The challenge with a concept like resilience to violence, which is both ambiguous and dynamic, 

is, for analytical purposes, to identify a relationship that is concrete and measurable. Borrowing 

from Carpenter, this study measures the relationship between a community’s capacity (noun) 

and action (verb) and the level of existing violent extremist activity, specifically, the capacity and 

actions of a community to regulate violent extremist activities in that community.

Capacity encompasses the already embedded characteristics of communities that can be 

activated or harnessed for collective action that directly affect the presence or level of violence 

in a community. Thus, capacity comprises two components: embedded characteristics and 

community competence (the beliefs and behaviors that propel collective action). The relational 

action—to regulate—is a deliberate choice. All communities in this study have been affected 

by violent extremist activity. It is a more interesting and illuminating exercise to understand the 

interplay of extremist and community groups—a more realistic perspective on violent extremism in that the risk factors are often borne within the community as well as outside it. Other 

types of interaction could, of course, be chosen for analysis—such as prevention, mitigation, 

or eradication.

This study measures the 

relationship between a 

community’s capacity (noun) 

and action (verb) and the 

level of existing violent 

extremist activity.
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Resilience Factors

Communities that prevent the emergence of violent conflict, or rebound more quickly after it, 

have everyday capacities to successfully harness against violence. These capacities are identified 

and cross-validated in the works of Varshney, Carpenter, and Marshall and Wallace and are 

tested in this study of community response to violent extremism in Kenya. Communities can 

have these engrained capacities but fail to use them to mitigate risk or avert or recover from 

threat. Where latent capacities existed, how were they mobilized to actively and effectively 

mitigate the violent extremist threat?

Resilience Capacity + Community Competence 19 Risk = Reduced/Increased Level 

of Extremist Activity.

The everyday capacities that follow are identified by several studies that looked at why 

certain communities are resilient to violence. Communities activate these capacities to develop 

appropriate and relevant strategies. Surveys in Kenya tested the validity of these capacities and 

competencies as resilience factors for regulating the activity of violent extremist groups in a 

community.

Community Resilience Capacities

The first set of community capacities includes social capital, leadership, information, economic 

resources, and place attachment. 

Social Capital

As identified by both Varshney and Carpenter, bridging ties are the values of working trust and 

engagement toward other ethnic, religious, generational, or newcomer groups throughout the 

community. These relationships can be associational (people of different groups work together, 

for example, through charity groups or business associations on a project or to resolve a community problem) or quotidian (incidental or mundane interactions across community groups 

at markets, sports events, playgrounds). Both associational and quotidian bonds correlate with 

lower levels of communal (Varshney) and sectarian violence (Carpenter), but associational ties 

have a greater effect in lowering levels of violence or even preventing it.

Bonding ties are values of trust, cooperation, and engagement within an ethnic, religious, or 

generational group. Particularly relevant for the study on violent extremism in Kenya was an 

assessment of bonding relationships within religious and ethnic communities—that is, how 

inwardly focused and exclusionary the groups were. In several studies on religious and ethnic 

conflict, deep group bonding has been associated with increased levels of violence, as bonded 

groups tend to develop a sense of their own superiority and a group righteousness that dehumanizes and stereotypes other groups perceived as a threat to their existence.20

Overlapping ties bond members of one subgroup to other members of a subgroup. Overlapping tribal ties, as identified by Carpenter, made certain communities in Baghdad vulnerable 

to infiltration by al-Qaeda and thus increased levels of communal violence. Al-Qaeda entered 

Baghdad communities through urban-rural tribal ties. In this way, overlapping ties affected the 

levels of sectarian violence and community resilience in Iraq.21 This study tested for values of 

trust, cooperation, and engagement toward members of the same subgroup living outside the 

community (for example, tribal or ethnic, diaspora, religious, business ties).

Communities that prevent 

the emergence of violent 

conflict, or rebound more 

quickly after it, have 

everyday capacities to 

successfully harness 

against violence. 
USIP.ORG 15

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Leadership

This study’s survey asked several questions regarding leadership style, which Wallace and Anderson identify as central to resisting violence. In a comparative study, they outline specific qualities of 

leadership found in communities that successfully opted out of the wars and conflicts surrounding 

them. Although Marshall and Wallace do not themselves use the term, this report considers this 

leadership style as adaptive. The qualities strongly overlap with the concept of adaptive leadership:

• directly confront the reality of any situation—do not deny that bad things could 

happen;

• objectively assess the costs and benefits of strategic situations;

• avoid propaganda and absolutism in favor of pragmatic and undogmatic visions of the 

future;

• remain agile and flexible as the community navigates difficult paths; and 

• favor broadly inclusive processes of conflict analysis and strategy development.22

Wallace and Anderson also identify another leadership style critical to a community’s ability 

to resist or be resilient to violence—networked leadership. Ann Holohan, a hard-hitting critic 

of leadership in Kosovo’s peace transition, confirms the efficacy, in violent environments, of both 

leaders who network and networks of leaders.23 Holohan compared two district leaders: a guider

who “connected all the elements of local authority” and a classic hierarchical administrator. The 

former not only effectively advanced reform, but was also resistant to manipulation by conflict 

parties. With his vast network and connections, he was not beholden to or vulnerable to manipulation by any one group. The hierarchical counterpart, who remained office-bound and focused 

on his own institutional management—and made no connections with other institutions and 

the local population—failed to achieve critical reforms and often capitulated to the demands of 

the strongest in society because of his lack of connections and alliances. This coercive appeasement 

resulted in incidents of violence and an environment of intimidation and fear.

Wallace and Anderson find networked leadership to be highly relevant, and that leadership in 

nonviolent communities was diffused, multilayered, and shared.24 This study also tested for networked leadership, asking participants whether their leaders were out among the people, connecting to them and making connections among them. Interviewees were asked about the leadership 

qualities of their political, administrative (chief or elder), community, and religious leaders. Similarly, it tested for how actively a community engages with and uses forums organized by leadership; 

a resilient community not only has effective leadership, but also energetic, involved followers.

The third leadership category is the extent to which community members felt that various 

leadership levels were representative of the ethnic and religious makeup of the communities. 

Respondents were asked about representation at the immediate, community administrative 

leadership level, involving elders and chiefs. They also commented on whether office holders 

at the county level reflected the ethnic and religious composition of their communities. Equity 

in political representation is not only important for the leadership categories described above 

(a diverse leadership structure has access to and can mobilize all sectors of a community); it 

also influences the depth of community grievances, including access to services, justice, and 

economic development.

Information

Information is integral to collective action in response to violence or its threat. Opting Out of 

War details how, across country cases, an active and trustworthy information network, led by an 

Information is integral to 

collective action in response 

to violence or its threat.
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engaged leader, was crucial to community self-organization and implementation of its nonviolent strategies.25 Carpenter also highlights the importance of communication spaces—where 

community members can share vital information and engage in collective understanding of 

the conflict—to informing a community response: How do our collective strategies reinforce 

communal principles and values? What kind of community are we? What is our story and 

how does that shape our response to violence?26 In Kenya, communities were asked how they 

received and shared information on violent extremism, how accurate those information sources 

were, and how they made sense of that information.

Economic Resources

This study also looked at how well communities were able to leverage their economic resources 

and relationships in direct response to violent groups and incidents in their neighborhood. 

For example, can the provision of security for key economic hubs (such as markets or malls) 

prevent or counter violent groups? Can media outlets and social media be harnessed to report 

accurately on their actions?27 Business ties can often cut across ethnic, religious, and sectarian 

groups; the presence and activism of intergroup business associations in India were directly 

correlated to levels of communal violence in urban riots from 1950 to 1995.28

Place Attachment 

Place attachment, as Carpenter defines it, is an emotional connection to one’s neighborhood 

or city and is separate from connections to the people who live there. It is an attachment to the 

history, architecture, geography, and social settings of a community that give residents of that community a sense that their place of living is unique and should be preserved and conserved. Among 

Kenyans, there is a sense of attachment to place, although many often refer to their up-country ties. 

As Carpenter found in her study of Baghdad communities, the sense of attachment to a place is 

stronger for residents whose families have inhabited a neighborhood for generations—neighborhoods in Kenya like Majengo, Mombasa, and Pumwani, Nairobi. Given the large migrations of 

up-country and refugee populations into urban communities in Kenya, place attachment seemed 

to be a key factor in mobilizing a community to preserve integrity of place.

Community members were asked about the presence of newcomers to the community. 

Did they contribute to diversity—that is, what ethnic groups did they represent, and were they 

predominantly of one group or another? Carpenter finds that place detachment, defined as a low 

emotional connection to a particular community, was brought on by enclave housing and other 

mechanisms of social segregation between community groups. The effects include less intensive 

social interactions, less dense social networks, and by extension, lack of working trust.29 Kenya 

is an extremely transient society, people migrating from the rural areas to urban centers to find 

employment and then returning to the rural areas after retirement and with refugees migrating from bordering countries, including Somalia, Uganda, and Tanzania. When ties to ethnic or 

refugee subgroups are stronger than the bridging attachment to groups in their new community, 

people are more likely during crisis to seek protection from those subgroups, which encourages 

social fragmentation that extremist recruiters use to pit people against each other.

Community Competence

Resilience to violence is the ability of a community to harness existing capacities (outlined 

above) to adopt mutually agreed-on strategies and self-organize collective action to act against 

The sense of attachment 

to a place is stronger 

for residents whose 

families have inhabited 

a neighborhood for 

generations.
USIP.ORG 17

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

a specific threat posed by violent actors in a community (in this case, violent extremists). Community competence is part belief and part action; it is a belief in the efficacy of the group to 

change and influence issues critical to that group and the activities a community engages in to 

prevent or mitigate the threat of violence.

Resilience Capacity + Community Competence (related to) Risk/Threat = Reduced/

Increased Level of Extremist Activity.

Communities were asked about how strongly they believed in their own agency (versus being 

passive on core issues), how they were organizing to regulate and prevent violent extremist activity 

in their communities, and how they were tapping into resilience capacities to organize.

Collective Efficacy

Communities can have the engrained capacities described earlier but fail to use them to mitigate risk or avert or recover from threat. Collective efficacy is a fundamental mediating variable 

between existing capacities for and the adoption of collective action to prevent or mitigate threats. 

Communities that view themselves as having agency and the ability to control outcomes may 

exhibit greater resilience to violence than communities that are passive or frame themselves as victims. In this case, causal linkages and feedback loops between the belief in agency and community 

organization and preparation, or collective action, are quite clear. As groups engage successfully 

with violent actors, their efficacy increases, which drives better planning and strategies.

Community Activism

Community activism refers to citizen organization and engagement on issues important to the 

community as a product of its social capital and an indicator of its communal health.30 It asserts 

that how routinely community members work together to achieve common goals and their belief 

in their ability to engage and influence government officials on behalf of community issues can 

provide an effective buffer to conflict escalation after a violent incident.31 Examples of citizen 

participation in efforts to regulate violent extremism include engaging with government officials 

and advocating new policies and approaches to violent extremism.

Peace or Religious Engagement

Peace or religious engagement refers to advocacy initiated by community residents and religious 

leaders to prevent violent extremism or engage potential perpetrators or victims (for example, 

youth) for peace. Activities can include community marches for peace, intergroup dialogue to 

facilitate greater understanding of group perspectives on violent extremism and recruitment, and 

the engagement of religious leaders to promote peaceful interpretations of the Quran and to 

encourage their communities to practice tolerance and moderation.

Security

Community security requires the presence of community-based early warning and information 

management systems (dispelling rumors) and formal policing and protection measures (that is, 

not vigilante groups). The security operations are also inwardly focused, as Carpenter describes it,32

meaning that they are protective of the entire community, not just particular groups or people, 

and do not carry out activities against groups in other communities (external attacks).

Community competence 

is part belief and part 

action; it is a belief in the 

efficacy of the group to 

change and influence issues 

critical to that group and 

the activities a community 

engages in to prevent or 

mitigate the threat 

of violence.
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Community VE: Risks and Activities

This study systematically analyzes the push and pull factors relevant to the neighborhood case 

studies in Kenya and the community-identified violent extremist threats.

Resilience Capacity + Community Competence (relative to) Risk/Threat = 

Reduced/Increased Level of Extremist Activity.

The risk and threat factors used are taken from USAID (see table 2).33

Porous borders Relevant (community and country) borders that 

can be easily crossed or penetrated

Insularity Living an isolated existence

Institutionalized marginalization 

and government repression

Denial of political rights and civil liberties, 

including racial and cultural profiling

Bad neighborhood A community’s proximity to violent conflict 

in other neighborhoods or countries

Radical ideologies Presence and exposure to uncompromising 

ideological narratives

Cultural threat perceptions The deeply held belief of domination by another 

group, the West, or an oppressive international 

order that threatens locally held customs 

and values

Poor education Lack of critical thinking skills to discern manipulation by violent extremist actors

Youth poverty and 

unemployment

Although personal poverty is not directly related 

to membership in violent extremist groups, 

poverty’s effects of idleness, low self-esteem, 

and the breakdown of family support networks 

are highly correlated

Protracted violent conflict Engagement by a group or community in a 

long-standing violent conflict that drives individuals and groups to more extreme measures and 

groups to resolve their situation, and the 

acceptance of violence for dispute resolution

Historical injustices The deeply held belief that a group has been 

victimized historically by other groups and that 

victimization continues without a response by 

the international community that espouses 

protection of human rights or by national and 

local governments that are in a position to 

arbitrate their grievances

Search for adventure, financial gain, 

sense of belonging, or status

The material and emotional benefits that individuals and groups who have long viewed themselves 

as victimized and marginalized can derive

Availability of means and 

targets to perpetrate violence

Availability of weapons, access to sites/persons, 

and financial and material support

Table 2. Violent Extremist Risk Factors

Source: Author’s compilation
USIP.ORG 19

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

The study also asked communities about specific violent extremist threats in their community (see table 3).

Resilience Capacity + Community Competence (relative to) Risk/Threat = 

Reduced/Increased Level of Extremist Activity.

The complexities in measuring these activities by geographic location (groups may not 

perpetrate attacks where they live, causing displacement effects, and so on) are significant.

Data Collection and Analysis

After the research inquiry, framework, and site selection were completed, a first-round survey 

was conducted in all six communities, interviewing twenty respondents in each community in 

six groupings generally affected by violent extremism: community leaders, youth, victims, human 

rights advocates, women, and religious leaders. One group was selected from a list generated 

by local universities and nongovernmental organizations. The other group was an approximated 

randomized sample, conducted in street interviews or through snowballing (asking those interviewed for a list of potential respondents in the selected categories). The interview protocol was 

open-ended, which allowed questions to be asked in a culturally appropriate discussion style, for 

the enumerators to pursue promising lines of questioning, and for the communities to define 

resilience capacity and violent extremism for themselves.34 The goal was to conceptualize community resilience to violent extremism as it is understood by the community.

The first-round results were mixed. The data confirmed the efficacy of the site selection 

process; communities identified through a desk review as having lower or higher levels of 

violent extremist activity and similar levels of risk also self-identified as such. 

However, there were not enough data to test the significance of individual resilience factors. 

The lack of data stemmed from the difficulty of translating a concept as complex as resilience 

for enumerators; the inexperience of local enumerators, who often opted not to probe participant responses; and technical difficulties, such as reliable access to the internet, that pushed 

enumerators to shorten survey responses. The surveys did yield unique qualitative stories for 

each community that were used in focus group discussions to ask deeper questions. These focus 

group insights were used to develop more specific hypotheses to Kenya that were tested in a 

Activity Definition

Exposure/contact with recruiters Through physical presence or through 

information channels

Violent extremist attacks Grenades, bombs, and shootings

Use of community as operational base Sleeper cells, financial hubs or conduits, 

and arms 

Harassment Verbal abuse of individuals perceived to be 

violating Islam’s principles and morals

Table 3. Types of Community Violent Extremist Activity

Source: Author’s compilation
20 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

second-round survey, which was expanded to include questions on community resilience and 

risk factors to violent extremism to help fill the data gap.

The quantitative data from the second-round survey, including in-depth interviews of twelve 

respondents in each community, revealed that no single resilience factor (such as economic 

resources, information, leadership, or social cohesion) could explain why certain communities 

had higher or lower levels of violent extremist activity. This makes sense in that resilience to 

violent extremism is a complex interplay of factors.

However, a structured qualitative analysis of the data revealed that communities with less 

violence had complex, interconnected patterns of resilience factors and an accumulation of resilience factors that explained differing levels of risk and activity not captured in the binary coding 

of individual factors. Communities with less aggregate violent extremist activity had high levels of 

Muslim bonding, coupled with strong Christian-Muslim association; multiple community-led 

and -focused security networks working together and with the government; and the ability to 

discuss violent extremism openly to correctly diagnose the threat.

These findings were submitted to a blind review. A researcher with no previous affiliation 

to the project was provided the data sheets and the set of hypotheses on complex patterns of 

resilience found in less violent communities that were not seen in more violent communities. 

The reviewer was not told which communities had more or less violence to ensure the reviewer 

was not predisposed to certain patterns in particular places. The reviewer was also provided the 

following three null hypotheses:

• Communities that have less violent extremist activity have fluid religious and ethnic 

identities. 

• Communities that have less violent extremist activity have few/no connections 

between criminal and violent extremist groups. 

• Communities that have less violent extremist activity have mechanisms to manage 

youth-elder tensions and hostility. 

These community interactions did not have explanatory value either because the patterns 

were found in all communities (fluid ethnic and religious identities) or because community 

surveys overwhelmingly discounted the hypothesis, such as the hypothesis suggesting a nexus 

between violent extremist and criminal networks. The blind review validated the researchers’ 

findings that communities with lower levels of extremist activity had more capacity and that 

the relationship between resilience capacity and violent extremist activity and risk was inverse.

Findings

Violence is a complex phenomenon; the capacities and strategies needed for resilience to 

violence are correspondingly multifaceted and interrelated. This section dives deeper into the 

quantitative and qualitative analyses to deliver weighted research findings and results. The 

numerical analysis of resilience factors shows a relationship between aggregate levels of violent 

extremist activity in communities and aggregate levels of resilience. This aggregation of resilience factors, however, tells only part of the story. Establishing a research control helps to analyze 

which resilience factors matter when communities have similar levels of risk but different levels 

of violence. In other words, what resilience capacities or strategies made the difference in the 

three community pairings? 

Communities with less 

violence had complex, 

interconnected patterns of 

resilience factors and 

an accumulation of 

resilience factors. 
USIP.ORG 21

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Aggregate Analysis

Figure 1 shows that Tononoka and Kongowea have extremely low aggregated levels of violent 

extremist activity and only two significant violent extremism factors each: violent extremist 

ideologies (both neighborhoods), extremist recruiters (Tononoka), and attacks (Kongowea). 

Meanwhile, in Kisauni, Pumwani, Eastleigh, and Majengo, aggregate levels of multivariate 

threats are high. In table 4, the structured qualitative analysis suggests that resilience factors 

work interactively, creating positive feedback loops that are mutually reinforcing. Similarly, 

vulnerabilities can also interact, causing negative feedback loops.

Muslim-Muslim and Christian-Muslim associations: Kongowea and Tononoka, communities 

with less aggregate violent extremist activity, have both forms of association at high levels (see 

table 4). Like all other communities, Tononoka has had an influx of newcomers, primarily from 

up-country. Yet, because of its unique, communal living, Tononoka enjoys high levels of social 

cohesion and Muslim bonding. As Carpenter notes, segregated housing reduced resilience because 

it made recruitment and staging easier. One source of resilience in Tononoka is its traditional 

Swahili housing; when newcomers rent, they live communally across religious and ethnic lines.

Christian-Muslim and Muslim-Muslim associations in Kongowea occur primarily through 

business, political, and community interactions. Community members note a high level 

of religious and ethnic relations through community associations. Kongowea has numerous political clubs—places where community members affiliate along political party lines, and across

religious and ethnic lines, to discuss political issues. Political leaders also employ large numbers of Kongowea youth across religions and ethnic groups. Christian respondents in both 

Figure 1. Levels and Types of Violent Extremist Activity 

0.0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8 ■ Eastleigh

■ Kisauni

■ Majengo - Mombasa

■ Pumwani

■ Kongowea

■ Tononoka

violent extremist

attacks

violent extremist

base

violent extremist

harassment

violent extremist

ideology

violent extremist recruiters

Source: Author’s compilation

Resilience factors work 

interactively, creating 

positive feedback loops 

that are mutually reinforcing. 

Similarly, vulnerabilities 

can also interact, causing 

negative feedback loops.
22 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

communities showed high levels of empathy for Muslim groups experiencing discrimination 

and heavy-handed police actions and of trust that Muslim leaders were doing their best to 

counter extremist groups. Communities with a high degree of Muslim-Muslim association 

were more immune to violent extremists in their community; in Kenya, violent extremist groups 

generally enter communities through sectarian fissures, manipulating religious factions over 

doctrinal issues. Their ability to work together to prevent the threat established important community feedback loops of trust and peaceful coexistence with Christian neighbors.

Meanwhile, communities with more aggregate violent extremist activity (Pumwani, 

Eastleigh, Majengo, and Kisauni), as seen in table 4, had one associational factor and not the 

other (Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Muslim) or lower levels of each. High levels of Muslim 

sectarianism in Pumwani provided entry points for violent extremist groups, who continued to 

manipulate Muslim religious divides, even as interethnic and interreligious marriages created 

strong familial associational bonds across religions. In Eastleigh, retributive attacks by Christians following extremist attacks led to a negative violent feedback loop in the community. In 

Kisauni, radical ideology and extremist recruitment grew as a result of Muslim communities 

dividing into smaller and smaller religious sects—although focus group participants felt that 

a reputed Islamic university in Kisauni helped counter radical interpretations of the Quran. 

Although Christian church leaders in Kisauni generally tried to preach trust and nonretribution 

following violent extremist attacks against churches in other communities, survey responses 

showed that Christian trust in Muslim neighbors was deteriorating.

Communities with less violent extremist activity also had community-focused security groups 

that worked together, again creating mutually reinforcing feedback loops (see shaded columns of 

table 4). Tononoka has a gated perimeter around its community, along which watch guards man 

the gates and monitor incoming guests and newcomers. Religious leaders also report to the chiefs 

and elders on itinerant preachers in their mosques and other newcomers, and the mosques ring 

bells to gather the community to alert them of violent threats. Surveys showed the significance of 

multiple, interlocking community-focused security groups. First, they triangulated information 

to validate informer statements and investigate events. This way, they could not be manipulated 

by community members. Second, they provided a buffer between the community and the police, 

protecting community members who reported suspicious activities or actors from arbitrary police 

arrest or detention and preventing police from taking bribes to release the accused, who would 

then retaliate against the community members who had cooperated.

In Kongowea, politicians and criminal gangs collude to maintain politicians’ control of 

rents and profits from the community’s wholesale market (the largest in the region). Politicians are also closely tied to criminal groups in the community to instill fear and maintain the 

loyalty of community groups. This negative, interlocking security structure establishes an effective 

monopoly on violence in Kongowea, preventing other violent groups, like violent extremists, 

from disrupting business activity in the market. Both of these cooperative security structures 

also have interactions with the government (in Kongowea, through corrupt, nepotistic networks), which have prevented heavy-handed police activity and allowed for open discussions 

of violent extremism (see both Tononoka and Kongowea’s high scores) and, in turn, have 

enhanced monitoring of the security situation and the effectiveness of community security 

groups. With a monopoly over power and violence in the community, politicians prevent other 

violent groups from operating in order to protect the market’s activity. This form of negative resilience accounts for Kongowea’s negligible violent extremist activity, but it can certainly drive other 

forms of violence in the community (criminal, political, electoral).

Communities with less 

violent extremist activity 

also had community-focused 

security groups that worked 

together, again creating 

mutually reinforcing 

feedback loops.
USIP.ORG 23

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Pumwani Eastleigh Majengo Kisauni Tononoka Kongowea

Muslim-Muslim

association 1 2 2 2 3 3

Christian-Muslim

association 3 1 1 2 3 3

Criminal/

VE group ties 2 1 1 1 2 1

Fluid religious 

identities 2 2 1 2 2 2

Fluid ethnic 

identities 3 3 3 3 3 3

Interlocking 

security networks 2 2 1 1 3 1*

Open discussion 

of VE 1 1 2 2 3 3

Youth-elder 

relations 1 1 1 2 1 1

Total Score 15 13 12 15 20 17

Table 4. Numerical Comparative Analysis of Resilience Factors 

* Kongowea ranked low for community-led security groups; however, the blind review confirmed the presence of interlocking political-crime networks that 

regulate violence in Kongowea, where politicians do not want sales at the Kongowea market (from which they receive rents) to be affected by violence.

In Eastleigh, community-focused security groups exist but are not recognized by the government. Both Pumwani’s and Majengo’s community security groups suffer from high levels of 

public apathy and distrust of community elders (leaders of security efforts) who are not elected 

by the local population but are instead appointed by the chiefs and rely on informant networks 

for intelligence and information. Informant networks, unlike mutually reinforcing community 

security groups, create negative feedback loops in a community—community members can 

manipulate the informant system because informants are paid based on a constant supply of 

information. In all three communities, Nyumba Kumi, the government-led initiative to establish 

community monitoring groups for violent extremism, is viewed with suspicion. It was seen as a 

government plot to spy on the community. In Kisauni, two neighborhoods have communityoriented security groups that work with each other and the government, but others rely on vigilante groups to murder known criminals in their community and see periodic cycles of revenge 

killings. These communities often experience heavy-handed police activity as a result of their 

inability to provide their own security or engage with the police productively. They therefore score 

lower on open community discussions of the violent extremist threat (police often arbitrarily 

arrest informants or take bribes to release the accused, who will then perpetrate violence against 

their accusers). This negative feedback loop further diminishes their ability to mount a community protective response.

Informant networks, 

unlike mutually reinforcing 

community security groups, 

create negative feedback 

loops in a community.
24 USIP.ORG

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In sum, the aggregate analysis suggests that resilience factors work together and that these 

mutually enforcing capacities have feedback loops that affect levels of violent extremist activity in general. These feedback loops can be positive—for example, when community security 

groups buffer police engagement and create safe spaces to exchange information on extremist 

actors, which, in turn, increases the effectiveness of community security groups. They can also 

be negative—such as when Christian groups retaliate against Muslim communities for violent 

attacks, further breaking down trust and establishing retributive cycles of violence. Establishing 

a research control for risk factors and conducting a multivariate analysis to validate correlations 

between these factors would be a significant next step. If these resilience patterns held across 

different countries or across different types of conflict (electoral or gender-based violence), the 

findings would provide a foundation for an evidence-based resilience practice.

Comparative Analysis

Communities at equal risk of violent extremism but different levels of extremist activity in the 

form of radicalization, recruitment, or attacks were paired for analysis. The quantitative results, 

drawn from community survey data, validated the desk review on perceived levels of violent extremist activity. Eastleigh, Majengo, and Kisauni reported higher levels of recruitment, attacks, 

and radicalization, even as respondents identified relatively equal levels of youth unemployment, 

institutionalized marginalization and repression, and poor or absent governance (risk factors 

that are considered at the core of the violence driven by extremism in Nairobi and Mombasa).35

When aggregating the risk factors, the risk levels and types of violent extremist risk remained 

similar for group 1 and group 3. However, the aggregated risk in Majengo and Tononoka 

(group 2) differed, Majengo experiencing multiple risks and Tononoka only one (idle youth). 

Thus, groups 1 and 3 permitted a research control that could answer the question of whether, 

given similar levels of risk but different levels of violent extremist activity, resilience made the 

difference.

Resilience Capacity + Community Competence Risk = Reduced/Increased Level of 

Extremist Activity.

Group 1. The Eastleigh and Pumwani neighborhoods have comparable levels of risk. In 

terms of violent extremist activity, both report extremist recruitment, radical ideologies, and cells 

that use the community as a base. However, Eastleigh has a higher level of one violent extremism factor (violence). What explains the difference? The most intriguing difference between 

the communities is Pumwani’s high level of Christian-Muslim association (see table 4), which 

is tied to high levels and tolerance for interethnic and interreligious marriages. (Community 

residents identified this as a main factor in preventing electoral violence in Pumwani in the 

2007–08 elections; residents avoided ethnic-based manipulation by politicians because the 

ethnic “other” was a brother, cousin, or aunt.) As ethnic groups in Kenya can be mixed (Christian and Muslim), families associate across religious lines as well. This has prevented Christian 

retaliation of violent extremist attacks, which do occur in Eastleigh, causing escalating levels 

of violence. This finding echoes earlier research on conflict escalation that shows that bridging 

social capital prevents the hardening or rigidity of attitudes and identities that drive conflict. 

The relationship of high levels of social capital to strong community competence also fits with 

previous studies. High levels of interdenominational interaction have built working trust in 

Pumwani, a latent (embedded) capacity that enabled religious leaders to successfully prevent 

retaliatory measures after the 2012 attacks on the Gikomba market by Muslim extremists.
USIP.ORG 25

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Figure 2. Community Risk Correlations risk: adventure risk: opportunity risk: bad neighborhood risk: porous borders risk: cultural risk: education

risk: family breakdown

risk: global injustice

risk: historical injustice

risk: illegitimate government

risk: institutional

marginalization

risk: insularity

risk: poor/absent government

risk: protractive violent conflict

risk: state-sponsored

violent extremism

risk: youth poverty

Location

● Pumwani-Eastleigh

● Kongowea-Kisauni

● Tononoka-Majengo

0.2

-0.2

0.0

-0.4

Group 2. The quantitative data on Majengo and Tononoka revealed much lower levels of risk 

for violent extremist activity in Tononoka than in Majengo. Table 4 reveals the presence of a cooperative, organized community security initiative in Tononoka. Between 2002 and 2003, in response 

to a series of brutal rapes, the women of Tononoka organized community watch groups and built 

a secure, guarded perimeter. The community’s administrative leaders frequently arrested community-identified suspects and turned them over to police, establishing a latent security system that 

was used during the last elections to successfully prevent instigators of violence from entering the 

community. This security capacity was also used to prevent violent extremist groups from embedding—suspicious individuals are monitored by citizens and religious leaders and reported to 

chiefs and elders, the town’s guarded perimeter identifies all newcomers, and town elders sit on 

the boards of mosques. When controlled for risk across community pairs, the resilience factor 

analysis (see table 4) suggests that cooperative, community-focused security groups do not explain 

levels of violent extremist activity. However, the Tononoka case suggests that existing cooperative, 

community-focused security groups reduce risk to violent extremism.

Source: Author’s compilation
26 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Survey and focus group respondents in Tononoka noted that the low levels of violent 

extremist activity and criminal violence in the community are due to the fact that Tononoka 

repels and expels criminals and radical individuals to neighboring, vulnerable Majengo, further 

overwhelming that community’s already weak resilience capacities. (Kongowea allows criminal groups from Majengo to hide from police or other gangs, but not embed.) As shown in 

figure 1, Tononoka residents identify recruitment and exposure to radical ideologies as violent 

extremist threats for their community. Risk data on Tononoka reveal a single, primary risk 

factor for violent extremism (idle youth). The surveys describe how Tononoka youth are radicalized and recruited in Majengo. Thus, resilient communities may push their threats to more 

vulnerable, neighboring communities, but find that, because of proximity, they still experience 

risk and exposure to violent groups. This analysis suggests that strengthening and supporting 

community-level resilience may result in displacement effects for more vulnerable, neighboring communities.

Group 3. Despite having similar levels and types of risk, Kongowea is a community, identified by its members, as entirely free of violent extremist activity. Kisauni, meanwhile, has experienced all types of violent extremism: recruitment, operating bases, harassment, exposure to 

radical ideologies, and attacks. What is the source of Kongowea’s resilience to violent extremism? 

It has strong social cohesion—both Muslim-Muslim and Christian-Muslim associations occur 

in multiple ways. First, survey respondents report that neighborhoods are highly integrated, with 

different ethnic groups living together and “Kamba, Luos, Kikuyus, and the entire Mijikenda 

community not forgetting the Waswahili and Arabs living together in the same village and sharing the same social amenities such as church, mosque, schools, and health facilities.” Political 

party association also drives high levels of social cohesion, according to the surveys. Kongowea 

fully supports the Coalition for Reform and Dialogue, and this unified political party affiliation, 

according to respondents, drives social cohesion. Many community members from different religious and ethnic groups congregate every morning at local newspaper stands to discuss politics 

in a local form of association called the Bunge la Mwananchi, or public parliament. Kisauni, 

however, is highly segregated along ethnic lines, with community members reporting considerable bickering between ethnic groups at community meetings, employers hiring only from ethnic 

groups, and significant tensions between up-country newcomers and local, indigenous groups 

(Arabs, Indians, Mijikenda), especially over land tenure. Up-country newcomers are given title 

to public lands by national political leaders (seen as antagonistic to the coast), whereas local 

groups are denied titles and remain squatters on government-controlled land. These ethnic tensions exacerbate interreligious tensions; up-country newcomers are predominantly Christian and 

indigenous groups are Muslim.

In establishing a research control for community pairings based on similar levels of risk 

but different levels of violence, quantitative data show that three resilience relationships do not 

affect levels of violent extremist activity.

Fluid Identities

Interethnic, interreligious marriages and religious conversions in Kenya are quite common 

and, in general, communities are highly tolerant and accepting of them, providing an antidote 

to the marginalization and discrimination that can drive violent extremism. These familial 

and social bonds also build associational ties and working trust across religious and ethnic 

groups. Because the trend was prominent across all communities, it has no explanatory power 

with regard to resilience and community levels of violent extremism. Interreligious marriages 
USIP.ORG 27

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

are common, though not as prevalent, and only one way—Christians marry Muslims and 

convert; Muslims rarely change religion. Religious conversions were also quite prevalent in all 

communities. Again, the conversions were primarily from Christianity to Islam, for various 

reasons: attraction to the moral values of Islam; economic advantages, such as being hired by a 

certain business or boss; burial traditions—Muslims bury the dead faster and the community 

contributes to the costs, which can be quite expensive. Up-country migrants to the city would 

convert to Islam to associate with their ethnic counterparts, who were Muslim, but convert 

back to Christianity when they retire up-country. Several surveys mentioned the vulnerability 

of these converts to radicalization, because their Christian families often break ties with them, 

and their marginalization and lack of grounding in Islam make them easy targets for recruiters.

Criminal-VE Ties

Communities consistently reported no nexus between violent extremist and criminal groups. 

Most survey respondents rejected the idea of ties between violent extremist and criminal 

groups in their communities. Recruitment between the two groups might happen on an individual basis, though—criminals graduate to extremism and extremists returning from Somalia 

with no prospects for reintegration often join criminal groups. However, no nexus of cooperation or convergence exists between the two, which are seen to have fundamentally different 

goals and cultures—the “purist” pursuits of the extremist groups versus the drug and alcohol 

pursuits of the criminal gangs.

Many respondents, however, did note a linkage between resilience and criminal and violent 

extremist activity in a community. Specifically, communities that could not manage criminal 

groups felt they had no prospects for countering violent extremists, who were perceived as 

more sophisticated and more hidden.

Youth-Elder Relations

Communities consistently reported intergenerational hostility and competition. Most communities identified tensions between youth and elders as a risk factor: an educated youth 

bulge exists at a time when more traditional governance and religious leadership structures are 

tenaciously maintained. However, in Majengo and Pumwani, the relationships were described 

as particularly hostile, with elders perceived as giving away youth’s inheritance (by selling family 

land) and youth described as lazy and criminal. Youth discussed how elders in those communities often “manipulate the rules of the game” in various ways: changing the age of majority for 

mosque leadership and insisting that leaders have multiple children, parsing out community 

development funds to favorite youth, maintaining their leadership tenures for life without 

instilling accountability to citizens, or marginalizing youth by not seeking their active participation in community governance structures, such as barazas (community meetings). Elders 

discussed having to compete with youth, with significant government and development funds 

being funneled to the younger generation and up to 30 percent of government contracting 

provisions being set aside for youth. The root of the problem, according to youth and elders, 

is that this generation of elders led Kenya out of colonialism and feels a sense of entitlement 

to their leadership positions. Meanwhile, this generation of youth are more educated than the 

leadership class and are often forced to take employment in jobs well below their capabilities 

even as they watch leaders with considerably less (“third-grade”) education govern.

Communities that could 

not manage criminal 

groups felt they had no 

prospects for countering 

violent extremists, who 

were perceived as more 

sophisticated and 

more hidden.
28 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Although youth-elder relations in Pumwani, Kisauni, and Majengo were significantly more 

hostile, all communities in Kenya suffered from these tensions, and none had systematically tried 

to mitigate these relationships. Only two communities in the study had mechanisms to regulate intergenerational ties. In Tononoka, chiefs or elders are elected to three-year terms based 

on professional experience and personal qualities (for example, chiefs can be former university 

professors or government workers) and then move on with their careers after administrative service. Recently, Tononoka residents elected a youth to the chief ’s position. The young chief had 

creative ways of engaging the younger population. For example, no community meeting could 

be held unless all youth were invited and some were present; he insisted that community elders 

had to go where youth were (khat, chewing places) to invite them to the meetings. He himself 

also went to chew khat with youth to hear their problems. Although not a systematic effort, 

youth described how this process—an example of adaptive and networked leadership—relieved 

their antagonism. In Kongowea, most youth are on the payrolls of politicians, who use them 

to conduct violence against other politicians and political groups. As discussed in the following community stories, nepotism can solve the idle youth and violent extremism problem. At 

the same time, it can also result in high levels of youth-perpetrated political violence, especially 

around elections in Kenya.

A quantitative control of community pairings validates Christian-Muslim association as a 

resilience factor that controls levels of violence in communities similarly at risk. The quantitative 

control also confirms that fluid ethnic identities, intergenerational competition or tension, and 

criminal-extremist ties have no explanatory power for different levels of violent extremist activity.

Community Resilience Stories

A qualitative analysis of community resilience stories shows that resilient communities can push 

violent actors to more vulnerable, neighboring communities; that communities can be resilient 

to violent extremism in negative ways, such as when alliances of politicians and criminal gangs 

prevent extremist activity; and that resilience does not mean invulnerability—highly resilient communities can succumb to violent extremism if the level of threat is great. 

Eastleigh: A Multifaceted Violent Extremist Threat

Community members identified a multifaceted violent extremist threat in Eastleigh that includes six elements:

• Youth recruitment, associated with high unemployment and financial incentives, as 

well as heavy-handed police actions, primarily associated with Usalama Watch (a 

Kenyan government initiative to eliminate terrorist networks focused mostly on 

Eastleigh and Mombasa).

• Radical messaging by itinerant preachers, who have easy access to Eastleigh as a 

highly transient community, and the community’s tradition of muhadharas, which the 

community perceives as destabilizing.

• Presence of sleeper cells in neighborhoods where Nyumba Kumi initiatives have 

failed to take hold.

• Tensions between Christian and Muslim communities after the interreligious violence 

in the 2013 elections and attacks on churches in nearby communities (St. Polycarp) 

and after Christians from Maltare retaliated against Muslim groups (primarily 

Somali) after an attack on a commuter bus in 2012.

Resilient communities can 

push violent actors to more 

vulnerable, neighboring 

communities; that 

communities can be resilient 

to violent extremism in 

negative ways, such as 

when alliances of politicians 

and criminal gangs prevent 

extremist activity; and 

that resilience does not 

mean invulnerability.
USIP.ORG 29

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

• Self-imposed isolation of the substantial Somali refugee community that residents 

feel is a security threat because refugees and diaspora move in and out of the country 

with limited oversight and little is known about specific individuals. The Somali 

community has served as a conduit for a more culturally and religiously conservative 

vein. It has funded religious educational institutions and conservative mosques, 

which are perceived as avenues for radicalization among Somali youth.

• Major religious schisms between indigenous Muslims and newcomers, primarily 

Somalis, which prevent a cohesive community approach to prevention.

Since a series of grenade and gun attacks in Eastleigh, and in some cases retributive attacks of 

Christians on Muslim neighborhoods, community members and leaders have engaged actively 

in efforts to counter and prevent violent extremist groups from operating within community 

boundaries. This is a story of a community building and creating resilience capacity. Community 

leaders—there is a strong functioning administrative leadership of chiefs and elders—are proactive on issues of peace and security. They sponsor interreligious dialogues to combat the muhadharas; their efforts to engage communities in education and sensitization to violent extremism 

are well-attended, and citizens engage in open discussions of risks and threats.

Business leaders, especially in Eastleigh North, are predominately Somali, and are highly 

proactive on security—though they generally keep themselves separate from the rest of the 

community. In April 2014, the Kenyan government initiated Usalama Watch in Eastleigh and 

Mombasa, a mass round-up of possible terrorist suspects that was largely perceived as targeting 

Somali communities and resulting in large levels of indiscriminate arrests and torture. These 

operations have had a significant impact on the Somali community in Eastleigh, devastating 

families and undercutting the vibrant Somali-dominated business community, which has seen 

economic activity plummet. The overlapping ties that nourish the Somali business community 

in Eastleigh North (such as diaspora remittances, informal financial networks that sustain the 

refugee community) are also seen as a security threat, providing conduits for extremists and 

their financial assets. Thus, Usalama Watch has not only driven away valued business customers, it has undercut businesses’ financial underpinnings. According to surveys and focus group 

discussions, the Somali community has begun to cut deals with the police, routinely offering 

them bribes to release family members. The community has also begun to organize its own 

security groups and reconsider its isolationist position with its Kenyan neighbors. From a resilience perspective, the emerging actions of the Somali community both enhance and diminish 

resilience; contributing to police corruption and remaining self-marginalized affect key security and social cohesion resilience factors. On the other hand, establishing community-based 

security efforts and beginning to build routine engagements and trust with other ethnic groups 

in Kenya contribute to resilience.

Eastleigh exhibits strong intra-Muslim factionalism. Major schisms exist between indigenous 

Muslims (who practice a more moderate Islam) and newcomers, mostly Somali but also other 

non-Kenyan and Kenyan groups (who are adherents to more conservative and extremist strains 

of Islam, often sponsored by Wahabbist networks in the Middle East). These various sects have 

clashed in local mosques as they seek leadership control. The struggle between them for followers, 

especially through the muhadharas that are quite popular in Eastleigh, has also been quite visible. 

Interreligious relations are also difficult in Eastleigh, where religious-based violence has occurred 

and muhadharas are seen to stir interreligious (as well as intrareligious) conflict.

This is a story of a 

community building and 

creating resilience capacity. 
30 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Eastleigh, in many ways, can be seen as a community that is working actively to counter violent extremism—through creating and nurturing resilience—but it is also facing multivariate risks 

and threats that require corresponding resilience capacities. The community is active on security, 

but the government has refused to recognize or work with Nyumba Kumi or other community 

watch programs; thus, a critical link for community security provision is missing. Police continue 

to conduct raids, beat and torture those arrested, and free criminals and extremists identified by 

the community, making individuals who reported to the police extremely vulnerable to retribution. 

Because of this heavy-handed police approach, discussion of violent extremism has gone underground, and the community is left with little ability to identify and counter the threat: “We know 

sleeper cells exist in our community, but we have no idea where they are.”

Based on the data gathered from Eastleigh, communities with high levels and multiple 

threats may need commensurate levels and matching resilience capacities. Given the high levels of extremist violence that exist in Eastleigh (as compared to all the other communities), 

community security arrangements must reach a certain threshold to counter the violence. The 

gaps in Eastleigh’s security constellation and the government’s refusal to engage prevent the 

community from reaching that threshold. Its ability to address the threats of radicalization and 

recruitment are undermined by a lack of social cohesion or working trust between its Christian 

and Muslim communities and within the Muslim community.

Pumwani: Social Cohesion, Negative Resilience, or Both

As in Majengo, Mombasa, the selling off of family land has had a deep impact both on 

Pumwani’s youth—who have lost inheritance, status, and income—and on intergenerational 

relations. Youth-elder hostility is pronounced. Youth perceive elders as corrupt, husbanding 

community resources for their own self-interest. The chief-elder system is largely defunct, 

seen by residents as an illegitimate governance structure with bribe-taking elders appointed 

by the chief with no community input or vote. These tensions played out most prominently in 

the takeover, in 2007, of the Pumwani Riyadha mosque by a group of radical Wahabbist youth 

led by a radical imam (Ahmadi Iman) from a more moderate Sunni-affiliated, long-term 

mosque leadership. Violence erupted in the Gikomba market when the Wahabbist youth took 

over market stalls owned by the mosque. A March 2016 raid on the mosque broke up an 

al-Shabaab financing network that funneled market income to the terrorist group through Eastleigh’s informal financial system, which is used primarily by refugees and newcomers. Earlier, the 

new mosque leadership was accused of and confirmed to have been recruiting Pumwani youth for 

al-Shabaab service in Somalia through its educational courses that preached an extremist

religious ideology. Imam Ahmadi Iman’s radical policies—rejecting the celebration of the birthday of the Prophet, prohibiting women from dancing, and insisting on male ways of dressing—

caused deep conflict within the Pumwani Muslim community. The original Wahabbist-Sunni 

division has spawned further divisions: Sunnah-Madhhab, Wahabi-Madhhab, Ahlu TarikuMadhhab, Shia-Madhhab, and Salafis-Madhhab. These subdivisions led to the formation of 

other smaller mosques, specifically, Masjid Noor, Masjid Khadija, Chelsea Mosque, Internally Displaced Persons Mosque, and the newly refurbished Pumwani Riyadha mosque. These 

groups’ “small doctrinal divisions and internal wranglings” have prevented the Muslim community from countering the infiltration of radicalism.

Thus, Pumwani, like Eastleigh, is facing a pernicious, multifaceted threat (that is, recruitment, radicalization, terrorist financial networks, operating bases) and low levels of resilience 

capacity (such as Muslim bonding and community security activism). However, unlike Eastleigh, 

Eastleigh, in many ways, 

can be seen as a community 

that is working actively to 

counter violent extremism—

through creating and 

nurturing resilience—but it 

is also facing multivariate 

risks and threats that 

require corresponding 

resilience capacities. 
USIP.ORG 31

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Pumwani does not suffer high levels of violence. For example, after the violent attacks on the 

Gikomba market, religious leaders effectively appealed to the community not to engage in retributive attacks, noting that the market victims were from all denominations. This is not the 

case in Eastleigh, where violent extremist attacks have been followed by retributive attacks exacted by Christian communities, and high levels of Christian-Muslim tension still exist following unresolved issues from violent attacks in the last elections. Community and focus group 

respondents, however, consistently held up the community’s high levels of interethnic and interreligious association, not through community organizations but through family life. High levels 

of intermarriage have resulted in high levels of association with members of other ethnicities 

and religions through family life and shared holidays and festivals. This intimate associational 

life, the community felt, was the reason they had no electoral violence from 2007 to 2008 and 

why they had been able to mitigate extremist violence.

Unfortunately, many community members feel that Pumwani is a community at a tipping 

point, where the threshold of threat is rapidly overcoming resilience capacity. Community apathy 

in Pumwani is tangible; no community problem-solving forums are in place (barazas, or public 

meetings, are no longer held), and the administrative leadership apparatus is seen as illegitimate 

and ineffective. On the security side, heavy-handed police actions have caused the community 

discussion of violent extremism to go underground to avoid indiscriminate police detention and 

harassment or targeted attacks by violent groups against community informants. Many community members recognized that they had a violent extremist threat but did not know the extent or 

where it existed. Local security organizations—Nyumba Kumi and the chief-elder system—were 

seen as illegitimate. Unlike in other communities where they are elected, Nyumba Kumi ambassadors are appointed by the chiefs, who are largely seen by the community as corrupt. Although 

a robust, tolerant network of familial association across religious and ethnic lines is a strong point 

of resilience, a community with only one factor will obviously reach a tipping point more rapidly.

Pumwani, like Majengo in Mombasa, faces multiple threats but has experienced low numbers 

of extremist attacks. This may be the result of a strategic choice by extremists not to attract unwarranted government attention in these neighborhoods, or because extremists have no substantial 

and insular Christian populations to target, as is the case in Kisauni and Eastleigh.

Tononoka: Security, a Mutual Responsibility

Key resilience patterns were the most pronounced in Tononoka, making it the most resilient community and the one with the least demonstrable violent extremist activity. Although Tononoka 

is an extremely diverse community (no ethnic or religious group holds a majority), its ethnic and 

religious groups are bound by numerous associational ties, largely because it has retained and conserved traditional Swahili housing compounds. The old inhabitants of Tononoka rent buildings 

in these compounds to newcomers regardless of religious or ethnic affiliation. The old inhabitants 

have also raised their children together, creating intergenerational ties, also across religious and 

ethnic lines. This associational life—sharing holidays, funerals, and marriages regardless of religious and ethnic orientation—has counteracted the effects of extreme diversity and a high influx 

of up-country settlers to the community.

Residents of Tononoka note that, as a diverse community, they have difficulty coming 

together to resolve conflict within the community except around security issues. In the early 

2000s, a series of violent rapes in the community compelled members to organize watch groups 

that to this day work with police to monitor and arrest violent criminals perpetrating the attacks. 

The community’s collective efficacy on security came to the fore again in the 2013 elections. 

Many community members 

feel that Pumwani is a 

community at a tipping 

point, where the threshold of 

threat is rapidly overcoming 

resilience capacity. 
32 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

In that period, community members across ethnic and religious lines formed a human chain on 

Tononoka’s border to keep out provocateurs. This active, community-based, indigenous security system, run by the chief through community elders, is now the basis for the government’s 

Nyumba Kumi initiative. Tononoka has zero tolerance for crime; the entire community considers security a personal responsibility. When crimes are reported, village leaders go to a suspect’s 

home, apprehend the individual, and turn him or her over to the police. According to a survey 

respondent, “The beauty of Tononoka is that they have taken security as their own responsibility.” Fairly good relations with the local police are a unique aspect of Tononoka’s security. 

The involvement of the religious community in a working information-sharing system among 

administration officials, county government officials and politicians, and community groups has 

ensured that radical sermons are not preached in Tononoka mosques. Every mosque committee 

in Tononoka reserves a seat for a government village elder or chief, and religious leaders routinely report newcomers through this system and screen the remarks of itinerant sheikhs before 

they engage with congregations. Mosques also serve as the community’s early warning system; 

they ring their bells to alert the community to the presence of criminals and criminal acts.

Tononoka has not fully resolved its youth-elder relations problem; significant tensions still 

exist. It does have a unique leadership structure, where elders are not given life tenure but are 

elected for limited terms based on professional experience. One of the new chiefs, in fact, is 

in his thirties and makes a point of engaging youth “where they are at,” including where they 

idly chew miraa (an herbal stimulant from the khat plant), and pushes for youth engagement 

in all community forums. In addition, village elders have arranged youth interest groups (such 

as art, sports, music) that operate across villages. There are not many idle youth in Tononoka 

because it houses one of the largest wholesale khat markets in the region, which focus group 

participants estimated employed 60 percent of youth. The community has mixed feelings about 

the drug market, but overall, thinks that elders manage youth relations “smartly.” Despite no 

structure for managing the competition between youth and elders for resources and access to 

decision-making authorities, community members feel that even the hope that youth might 

accede to leadership positions in the community, as modeled by the one young chief, helps 

manage tensions and expectations.

Majengo: 

Community Breakdown—Piling on the Most Vulnerable Community

Majengo, Mombasa, had the highest levels and most varied types of extremist activity and had 

the least resilience capacity of the communities studied. The land-grabbing phenomenon common in Kenya during the 1990s has devastated Majengo in many ways. The older generations 

have sold their family landholdings to newcomers, which has created a generation of displaced 

youth. Most residents were raised to be traders, as generations were before them, and have relied on rental properties to supplement their income. Thus, many of Majengo’s youth were not 

provided formal education because they were not expected to engage in formal employment. 

Up-country newcomers to Mombasa have also taken over much of the city’s informal trade 

from traditional trading families, importing agricultural produce from their rural communities. 

Majengo youth, in one generation, have lost everything: employment opportunity, status as 

part of a long-respected group of local traders, and their family heritage (housing that not only 

guaranteed a family income but a revered place in the community and its leadership structure). 

Intergenerational tensions are extremely high, with no apparent mechanism or structure to 

manage them.
USIP.ORG 33

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as a result of the land grabs, growing attention around 

accountability for public property turned toward the management of mosque property. A cohort 

of young religious scholars who had come back from studies in the Middle East and had Salafist leanings began directing these questions toward the mosque committees in Majengo, whose 

members were accused to have benefited from the auctioning of mosque property at the expense 

of the community. 

Formal Muslim leadership was also broadly rejected in associations such as the Council of 

Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) and the Supreme Council of Kenyan Muslims, whose 

members were preaching or sitting at the mosque committees in Majengo. Because CIPK had 

emerged from the unregistered and disbanded IPK, these leaders were also viewed by the young 

(epitomized in the charismatic leadership of Aboud Rogo and Abubakar Shariff) as sell-outs 

and much later as apostates. Generally, these developments—borne out of a series of economic, 

historical, generational, and religious factors—created the conditions that would lead to an explosion of radical militancy in Majengo and the schisms within its Muslim community.

Christian-Muslim association is also quite weak in Majengo, affected by a clear, strong victimization narrative related to a broader coastal marginalization narrative by the central government 

and what is perceived to be a mostly Christian- and up-country-based administration (different 

from the community in Majengo). Majengo’s population has recently grown, new residents 

coming from other parts of the country and Somalia. This migration, in some ways, is read as 

evidence of the continuing marginalization of the residents of Majengo, given that the incoming 

groups are changing the social makeup, and have cultures perceived as not amenable to established 

local traditions. Residents with up-country origins have not been as long in Majengo as they 

have in Tononoka and have therefore not been able to craft a functional identity with the indigenous population. This might mean that the Majengo community has not been able to develop 

trust, if they interact and work together at all. This situation makes it easy to accept stereotypes of other groups within the same community, some sections of the up-country community 

believing older Majengo residents to be lazy and indolent and some among the older Majengo 

residents believing up-country communities to be aggressive.

Following the Masjid Musa mosque raid, the police adopted a heavy-handed approach 

in Majengo, making broad, arbitrary arrests and detentions. These tactics have not only 

increased anger and resentment within the community, making more youths vulnerable to violent extremist recruitment techniques that manipulate local grievances, but they also greatly 

affect community resilience capacities in multiple ways. Religious leaders have restrained their 

activities, shying away from open religious expression and acts, which invite police attention. 

While there is no overt radicalization, there is also no peace messaging; everything has gone 

silent. The police also rely on a system of paid informants to monitor the community—a system 

that is frequently abused by community members using it to seek retribution or extra money. 

Therefore, individuals who want to exercise their citizenship through legitimate reporting on 

criminals and extremists are often labeled as informants by the community, arbitrarily arrested 

by the police, or, when police detain and release the identified perpetrators, subject to retribution. Community information sharing on security, therefore, has gone underground, which has 

eroded any ability of the community to appropriately identify the threat and develop appropriate strategies. In surveys and focus group discussions, community members recognized their 

inability to mount an effective security response: “Our inability to organize our own security has 

allowed criminal gangs to dominate our community. A community that cannot control crime is 

also vulnerable to violent extremism.”

Community information 

sharing on security, 

therefore, has gone 

underground, which has 

eroded any ability of the 

community to appropriately 

identify the threat and 

develop appropriate 

strategies.
34 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Kisauni: Ink Blots

Kisauni is a highly diverse community, primarily Muslims and Swahilis, along with newcomer 

ethnic groups from up-country that are mostly Christian. Focus groups and survey respondents characterize Kisauni as a community that “could go either way.” However, this is not a 

community at a threshold, like Pumwani, which is facing increasing levels of threat and rapidly 

deteriorating resilience. Kisauni is like an ink blot; for every violent extremist threat, there is a 

related pocket of resilience that can be nurtured, the ink spreading and connecting like a protective coating. Or, these separate pockets can begin to fade, and their failure to broaden and 

connect will result in more violence.

Radicalization and extremist recruitment occur in Kisauni, and the Muslim community is 

fractured, with high levels of sectarianism. Kisauni has historically had a Shia-Sunni divide, but 

Muslim groups have further split into Wahhabism, Salafism, and Sufism. These divisions are 

caused by doctrinal disagreements: “Even if people differed in small aspects like how to perform prayers, or their stand on jihadism, they opt to form their own sect rather than resolving 

the issue in a scholarly way.” Kisauni is home to the Mahad, a Salafist-leaning college, which 

has trained notable radical Imams: Ahmed Iman, Aboud Rogo, and Ali Bahero. Bahero broke 

with radicalism, vehemently rejecting extremist ideologues, while preaching at Kisauni’s Masjid Swafaa mosque. However, he was then violently attacked by radicalized youth and deposed 

as Masjid Swafaa’s imam; the mosque was then raided by police in 2014. Despite this pocket 

of resilience, the Muslim community has not been able to mount a unified strategy against 

recruitment. Heavy-handed police raids, resulting in detentions and disappearances, have 

increased youth radicalization. Religious leaders do host community meetings to discuss 

recruitment and radicalization but community members note that, because of the police 

brutality, discussions are general. Kisauni youth see many sheikhs as compromised, as being 

government mouthpieces, speaking against radicalization but not against government repression and the marginalization of the coast. Some are even considered to be informants, or they 

say nothing and are seen as weak and having no conviction.

Youth-elder relations are quite tense in Kisauni, elders often manipulating youth for political gain or changing the rules of the game to prevent youth from gaining leadership positions. 

Kisauni youth are increasingly well-educated and see elders cutting off their economic opportunity at younger and younger ages; for example, schools are overcrowded and access to quality 

education is declining. At the same time they are offered what they call third-grade jobs (that 

is, manual labor), they see current leaders as having third-grade (inferior) education. Different 

government officials sponsor different youth teams, which in many cases are similar to criminal 

gangs. Certain neighborhoods have associated criminal networks, which are beginning to form 

overlapping ties with criminal gangs in Majengo. A bright spot in this intergenerational melee 

is that youth themselves are of a generation that harbors no ethnic or religious discrimination. Youth mix easily across ethnicities and religions, primarily because they have been raised 

together in ethnically mixed and religiously tolerant households, partially a result of intermarriages between up-country and coastal families. Working trust among youth is extensive, 

whether it is in support of illegal criminal activity or more constructive neighborhood projects. 

Interviewees, though, did note what they called negative values that also bring young people 

together (such as criminality). Youth in Kisauni are also vulnerable to the Majengo problem, 

being exposed to and recruited by criminal and violent extremist groups that reside there.

About a decade ago, the community was riddled by crime. In response, community elders 

organized a vigilante group, the Funga File (Close the File), to identify thieves and criminals 

For every violent extremist 

threat, there is a related 

pocket of resilience that 

can be nurtured, the ink 

spreading and connecting 

like a protective coating. 
USIP.ORG 35

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

and to exercise justice, usually extrajudicial killings. They employed youth to exercise “justice” 

at night and to return to their jobs by day. This zero-sum approach to crime quickly rid the 

community of criminals, and at which point the community declined to continue funding the 

effort. Vigilantism is still the prominent form of community organization around crime. Community members recount stories of killing noted criminals at night: “We have a policy in our 

community that if you are ever caught stealing, we burn you alive or beat you up until you are 

pronounced dead. We do not accommodate such behaviors.” However, in two neighborhoods 

of Kisauni (Bambura and Bakarani), a highly resilient security system has emerged, involving 

interlocking groups that have relationships with the government. Each has a different form. 

In Bambura, every household provides 50 shillings a month that goes to a security committee. 

The security committee has organized a community watch group of vetted individuals. The 

watch group coordinates with the local chief, who organizes security meetings for the committee and trains the watch groups on community policing. When the security team in Bambura 

was initiated, the committee invited the officer in command of the Bambura Police Station 

to a meeting and sought his permission to operate. The community provided the names of 

the security watch group so that they are known to the police and can patrol without police 

harassment. In Bakarani, the Nyumba Kumi initiative, headed by the chief, is used effectively 

to circulate information around the community through the ambassadors, who also initiate, 

with village elders, investigations based on community reports. Bakarani had a community 

watch group, but newcomers refused to pay the monthly contributions. The community itself 

has therefore become active on security issues, including adopting a series of protective measures (such as come home before dark, have someone escort you from the bus, scream if you 

are attacked). Recently, citizens of Bakarani made a citizen’s arrest of two phone snatchers and 

surrendered them to the police. These two pockets of security resilience are possible models for 

other neighborhoods in Kisauni.

Kongowea: Negative Resilience

A nexus in Kongowea connects politicians, the formal economy, and crime and is the source 

of the community’s resilience to violent extremism. Entrenched, systemic political violence 

virtually ensures high levels of electoral violence in the upcoming 2017 elections, however. The 

Kongowea market drives the local economy. Politicians control the licensing system to the 

market, and two factions are currently involved in a vicious struggle to administer the market 

and its revenues: the first member of parliament of the newly created Nyali constituency (an 

up-country resident with ties to the Luo and Luhya) in which the market is now located 

has laid claim to it. The member of parliment’s claim challenges the influence of the locally 

raised county governor. The two politicians have created two parallel management committees. 

Up-country business people (connected to the member of parliament), who have connections 

with a much more fertile up-country Kenya, are increasingly dominating supply of the market, 

bringing vegetable produce and fruit into Mombasa.

Politics dominate Kongowea communal life. Young people are employed by political parties 

to work in the market and to execute violent hits against political competitors, often outside 

Kongowea. The predatory political machines that inhabit Kongowea have either destroyed or 

co-opted the local administration; elders and chiefs are either marginalized by politicians, with 

local citizens engaging directly with “the machine,” or are on the payroll, working at the market or directly on party payrolls. Politics plays an important cross-cutting, associational role in 

Kongowea, and constituents, across ethnic and religious lines, are involved in politics or political 

A nexus in Kongowea 

connects politicians, the 

formal economy, and crime 

and is the source of the 

community’s resilience 

to violent extremism. 

Entrenched, systemic 

political violence virtually 

ensures high levels of 

electoral violence in the 

upcoming 2017 elections, 

however. 
36 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

discussion groups loyal to a certain faction. Discussion is persistent in survey responses of corruption, bribery, and supporter- and family-based nepotism with regard to political influence and 

community development funds, such as the Constituency Development Fund, Ward Development Fund, Bursaries, and so on.

The political class is also allegedly connected to organized crime. Survey respondents 

recounted stories of targeted attacks and robberies by the criminal group Wakali Kwanza at 

weddings and family events, for example, orchestrated by politicians who provide intelligence 

on community events: “They intend to project fear to the voters so that they get their way 

on the leadership seats easily.” Criminal gangs often avoid prosecution after being reported 

to the police: “At the end of the day, you will find them free from jail; they are out doing the 

same things. It’s like there is someone who is funding them.” Like a Mafia town where the 

dons have a monopoly on violence and viciously protect their turf, no other perpetrators of 

violence, including violent extremists, have a foothold in Kongowea, where citizens openly 

discuss the threat and risk of violent extremism, noting that violent extremist activity is practically nonexistent.

Christians are the majority in Kongowea, although the community is ethnically and 

religiously diverse. Older settlements in Kongowea exist, including Muslim communities of 

Swahili, Bajuni, and Arab descent. But with a recent in-migration of up-country communities and the associated deteriorating status of social services, including security, most of these 

earlier residents have relocated to other parts of Mombasa and the coast. This has given Kongowea a dominant up-country, Christian, and immigrant character. Unlike their counterparts in 

other communities, Kongowea’s religious leaders are not engaged in leadership and governance 

structures. Church congregations tend to include mixed ethnic groups, and, thus far, Christian 

leaders preach tolerance and defuse tensions. If an attack occurs on a church in another area of 

Mombasa, or against non-Muslims, church leaders preach actively against revenge. Interestingly enough, it was in Kongowea where evidence was cited of CVE work having been done, 

including peace messaging, village forums, and interfaith dialogue, especially after an attack had 

occurred somewhere in the country. This level of awareness in Kongowea of an eminent threat 

of violent extremist activity is explained by the targeting of Christian communities elsewhere. 

Ethnic and religious groups coexist in Kongowea; minorities are considered to be well treated, 

and ethnic groups and families often incorporate members of different religions. This leads to a 

blending of ethnic and religious customs.

Overall Findings

In regard to resilience and social cohesion, this study validates—in a controlled, mixed quantitative-qualitative analysis—that communities with genuine associations (through clubs, 

investment groups, dialogue, intermarriage, familial interactions) with religious members from 

different groups experience less violent extremist activity. 

Christian-Muslim association, for example, prevents the escalation of violence. Following 

violent extremist attacks, Christian leaders with trust in and association with Muslims prevent retribution. Surveys in communities with strong Christian-Muslim association reveal that 

Christians showed marked empathy with Muslim groups experiencing heavy-handed police 

actions and trusted that Muslim leaders were doing their best to counter extremist groups. 

Within family Christian-Muslim associations, the resilience may be more durable in comparison 

with other forms of association and should be validated. This study proposes an interrelationship 
USIP.ORG 37

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

between Christian-Muslim and Muslim-Muslim associations, in which communities with both 

experience more working trust, which can prevent violent extremist actors from embedding in a 

community through fractures in the Muslim community (multiple, antagonistic religious sects) 

as well as retributive cycles of conflict and violence following violent attacks.

This study also suggests that communities with existing security capacities (such as security, 

collective efficacy, and social cohesion) have less risk of violent extremist activity. However, 

these arrangements did not have an impact on levels of violent extremist activity in communities similarly at risk. The study proposes an interrelationship between interlocking, community-focused security groups and the ability of a community to correctly identify and adapt to 

extremist threats by buffering the community from heavy-handed police action, triangulating 

security information for effective response, and creating a space for open discussions of the 

nature and level of violent extremist activity.

Controlling for similar risk and differing levels of violent extremist activity, intergenerational tensions do not emerge as an explanatory resilience factor—that is, communities that 

managed intergenerational tensions had less activity. In fact, all communities had significant 

intergenerational tensions (competition for resources and leadership positions, disrespect for 

the other generation’s culture and world views, and so on). Yet both positive and negative 

examples of relationship management were apparent. In Tononoka, elections for community 

administrative positions gave youth hope that they could also access leadership positions. In 

Kongowea, politicians tightly managed youth-elder tensions by balancing the distribution of 

community development funds and work contracts at the Kongowea market.

This study confirms that fluid religious and ethnic identities, which might lead to higher 

tolerance of and openness to members of other religions and tribal groups, do not explain community resilience to violent extremism. All communities showed great tolerance for religious 

conversion and interethnic marriages and significant levels of each.

This study also confirms that violent extremists and criminal groups in urban Kenyan communities do not currently work together or associate. Individual ties exist, however: a criminal may 

graduate to violent extremism, and violent extremists who return from Somalia and cannot reintegrate into their communities may join criminal groups. Therefore, a criminal–violent extremist 

nexus does not explain different levels of extremist activity in the community pairings.

Certain insights from this study about resilience in the context of violent extremism and 

peacemaking are especially transferable. Specifically, in regard to resilience thresholds, communities facing multivariate and high levels of violent extremist threats need to develop deep, 

diverse resilience capacities and strategies. Without commensurate capacity and action, threats 

can overwhelm even highly resilient communities. On a different note, community groups that 

exercise a monopoly of violence within a community (such as criminal groups or politicians) 

may ensure the community’s resilience to violent extremism but not to other forms of violence 

(such as crime, political, or electoral). Community resilience capacities may also accumulate; 

further research should explore whether a direct relationship exists between higher levels of 

capacity and action and lower levels of violent extremist activity. Feedback loops are significant. 

Community resilience capacities work with each other. For example, a community that discusses 

violent extremism openly can increase trust across community groups and improve their security 

engagement strategies. Displacement effects are another consideration. Resilient communities 

can export their violence to other surrounding communities. Last is the issue of dual threat. 

Heavy-handed security approaches not only increase the risk of violent extremist activity, they 

also undermine community resilience factors and relationships.

Communities facing 

multivariate and high levels 

of violent extremist threats 

need to develop deep, 

diverse resilience capacities 

and strategies. 
38 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Recommendations

Broadly, programming that focuses on countering violent extremism in Kenya needs to prioritize building working trust between Christian and Muslim groups. More precisely, the positive 

feedback loops created by community security groups and the government working together 

and by Christian-Muslim with Muslim-Muslim associational relationships should be further 

explored and tested. Last, resilience thresholds and displacement effects should be analyzed 

more deeply. The following tailored programming recommendations are grouped by actor.

Practitioners and Policymakers in Kenya

First, practitioners and policymakers within Kenya should prioritize building working trust 

between Christians and Muslims, including representatives of both groups in CVE programs, 

especially those that engage groups in joint activities and support community association. Part 

of this effort would include educating religious communities on how to use working trust to 

mitigate violent extremist shocks and long-term stressors that make a community vulnerable 

to violent extremism.

Relatedly, Kenyan actors also need to validate the importance of strong Christian-Muslim 

and Muslim-Muslim associations for building working trust between and empathy for religious 

others in order to reduce retributive violence and violent extremist activity in communities by 

simultaneously building interreligious and intrareligious relationships in communities. One 

element of this component would be to focus on building and supporting both interreligious 

and intrareligious associations, which have mutually reinforcing effects. Intrareligious cooperation prevents and manages the entry of violent extremist actors through sectarian divides in 

communities and builds trust among Christian communities that Muslim leaders and groups 

are doing their best. This interreligious trust prevents escalatory or retributive violence. Interreligious association creates more nuanced perspectives on extremist violence and community 

response, including that all religions are victims of extremist violence and that heavy-handed 

police actions are discriminatory and may further alienate or marginalize Muslim groups and 

weaken community social cohesion. It also creates more trust with Christian leaders acknowledging that Muslim leaders were doing their best in challenging conditions. This interreligious 

trust, in turn, reinforces intrareligious cohesion, while a divisive issue—the extent of Muslim 

marginalization and discrimination by Christians—which drives decisions on engagement or 

isolation, is diminished.

Separately, practitioners in Kenya need to validate the importance of cooperative communityled and community-focused security groups that work with the government for reducing the 

risk of violent extremism by focusing on preventative approaches, such as encouraging at-risk 

communities to develop or enhance cooperative security programs and engage in constructive 

outreach to the government. They should also communicate to the police that heavy-handed 

actions not only risk further radicalization, they also reduce community resilience by weakening 

social cohesion. Targeted groups feel more marginalized and also victimized when other ethnic or 

religious groups do not speak up in their defense. The degradation of working trust across ethnic 

and especially religious lines undermines the critical factor affecting levels of violent extremist activity—high levels of Christian-Muslim association. Encouraging multiple community-led and 

community-focused security organizations and facilitating their coordination to reduce the risk 

of violent extremism in communities strengthens such associations. In sum, multiple, coordinated 

community security organizations allow for broader security coverage in a community; the ability 

The positive feedback loops 

created by community 

security groups and the 

government working 

together and by ChristianMuslim with Muslim-Muslim 

associational relationships 

should be further explored.
USIP.ORG 39

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

of community leaders to triangulate security information with other organizations; less reliance 

on paid informant networks that can be easily manipulated; less corruption, in that having only 

one community security organization with the monopoly of power is often more prone to bribes 

and abuse of its power; and the ability of the community to buffer community members, who 

want to report violent extremist problems, from police abuse.

Finally, practitioners within the country need to work with communities to facilitate and 

protect safe spaces and conditions for the community to openly discuss violent extremist 

threats in order to mount effective CVE responses.

Practitioners and Policymakers in General

Programming actors more generally should integrate their CVE efforts into counterterrorism 

operations; heavy-handed law enforcement inhibits preventative engagement by communities 

to manage violent extremists threatening their communities.

Next, focusing equally on building community resilience capacity and eroding the resilience 

capacities of violent extremist groups—such as causing in-group divisions (eroding social cohesion) and affecting their capacity to develop effective strategies and operations—is critical.

Pushing violent groups into neighboring communities when enhancing resilience in a specific community is a significant concern. Adopting a comprehensive, multicommunity approach 

will help prevent displacement effects.

Identify and nurture capacities in a community developed through participatory processes 

that can be harnessed for resilience to violent extremism, such as protective security institutions, 

crisis response, and citizen participation in community-organized initiatives.

Identify patterns in community resilience responses to violent extremism that are mutually 

reinforcing through feedback loops. Engage in community exchanges on resilience methods to 

encourage peer-to-peer learning. Explore how international nongovernmental organizations can 

support community resilience capacities and activities without undermining them by appearing 

to co-opt them.

Research Community

The research community more generally can contribute by thoroughly analyzing community 

resilience thresholds to appropriately prioritize interventions for communities at a tipping 

point for violent extremism. Resilience factors and patterns identified in this research should be 

tested to develop an assessment framework for determining community resilience. Research that 

incorporates controls to determine significant resilience factors and patterns to better target CVE 

programming is needed, as are comparative research studies in different country and violence 

contexts to yield generalizable results that can inform sound CVE programming.

Heavy-handed law 

enforcement inhibits 

preventative engagement 

by communities to 

manage violent extremists 

threatening their 

communities.
40 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

Acknowledgments

Sahan researchers Ngala Chome and Andiah Kisia analyzed the communities and violent 

extremist trends in Kenya, organized and conducted the focus groups, and provided quality 

oversight of the survey and data collection. Another key partner in Kenya was project manager 

Scofield Muliru, an independent consultant and researcher who contributed his knowledge on 

violent extremism to support the site selection and provide feedback on the hypotheses, and 

who worked diligently to oversee the overall quality of the research, organize key events, train 

and manage the enumerator teams, and organize the research dissemination. Peer review of 

this publication was provided by both.

The author would like to thank Jonas Claes for his substantial input on the research design 

and methodology and for being a true partner in the development of the survey instruments 

and coding sheets, the training of the enumerators, and the coding of the data. Aparna Ramanan honed her research skills on this project, developing research hypotheses and conducting qualitative research for a number of the communities. Jen Heeg helped elaborate the 

intellectual framing of the study, and Ami Carpenter was a key advisor, providing substantial 

input and guidance into the research design and methodology and general moral support on 

the challenges of conducting experimental field research. The work of Tom Scherer in running 

the quantitative data and creating the graphs and diagrams is gratefully acknowledged.

Most important, the author thanks the women, men, youth, community leaders, elders, 

and religious leaders who gave their time and provided valuable insights on their communities in Kenya. The quiet courage of communities on the front lines of violent extremism and 

violence needs to be brought to light, as they are the key to prevention and recovery. The care 

and compassion community members show for each other can go a long way in countering 

violent extremism.
USIP.ORG 41

COMMUNITY RESILIENCE TO VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN KENYA

Notes

1. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 2002); Ami C. Carpenter, Community Resilience to Sectarian Violence in Baghdad (New 

York: Springer, 2014); Mary B. Anderson and Marshall Wallace, Opting Out of War: Strategies to Prevent 

Violent Conflict (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner, 2012).

2. International Crisis Group, “The Kenyan Military Intervention in Somalia,” Africa Report no. 184 

(Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2012).

3. Paul James and Manfred Steger, “Ideologies of Globalism,” Globalization and Culture 4 (London: Sage 

Publications, 2010).

4. Andrea Bartoli and Peter T. Coleman, “Addressing Extremism” (white paper, International Center for 

Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College, Columbia University, 2003), www.tc.columbia.

edu/i/a/document/9386_WhitePaper_2_Extremism_030809.pdf. 

5. Compare this, for example, with communism, which could be defined as an ideology but not an extremist 

ideology. Communist thinkers were able to argue for coexistence with capitalist nations and did not systematically demand their overthrow, basically believing that the logic of communism would ultimately prevail 

and transform the world order by its own accord. 

6. Alex P. Schmid, “Countering Violent Extremism: A Promising Response to Terrorism,” International 

Centre for Counter-Terrorism, June 12, 2012, http://icct.nl/publication/countering-violent-extremisma-promising-response-to-terrorism/. 

7. Robert W. Benson, “Free Trade As an Extremist Ideology: The Case of NAFTA,” University of Puget Sound 

Law Review 17 (1994): 555–85. 

8. “Empowering Local Partners to Fight Violent Extremism in the United States,” White House Statement, 

August 3, 2011, www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/08/03/empowering-local-partners-preventviolent-extremism-united-states. 

9. Andrea Bartoli and Peter T. Coleman, “Addressing Extremism” (New York: International Center for 

Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, 2003), 3.

10. Patrick Martin-Breen and J. Marty Andries, Resilience: A Literature Review (Brighton, UK: Institute of 

Development Studies, The Resource Alliance, and The Rockefeller Foundation, 2011), 5–8. 

11. Alejandra Bujones, Katrin Jaskiewicz, Lauren Linakis, and Michael McGirr, “A Framework for Analyzing 

Resilience in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations” (Washington, DC: School of International and 

Public Affairs, Columbia University, 2014), https://sipa.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/USAID%20

Final%20Report.pdf.

12. Ibid., 7.

13. Carpenter, Community Resilience, 76, 64, 75–76. Carpenter defines regime as the component parts of a social 

system.

14. Ibid., 120–24, 124–26.

15. Ibid., 64. 

16. Anderson and Wallace, Opting Out of War.

17. Guilain Denoeux with Lynn Carter, “Guide to the Drivers of Violent Extremism” (Washington, DC: 

USAID, 2009); Policy Task Team, “The Development Response to Violent Extremism and Insurgency 

Policy: Putting Principles into Action” (Washington, DC: USAID, 2011).

18. Carpenter, Community Resilience, 12.

19. means related to.

20. From the World Bank’s Social Capital Initiative working papers, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/

EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTSOCIALDEVELOPMENT/0,,contentMDK:20502531~pagePK:148956

~piPK:216618~theSitePK:244363,00.html.

21. Carpenter, Community Resilience, 87–88.

22. Anderson and Wallace, Opting Out of War, 47–52. Adaptive leadership is focused on building adaptive 

capacity in organizations and groups, as opposed to building an organization’s technical capacity. See Ron 

Heifetz, Marty Linsky, and Alexander Grashow, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for 

Changing Your Organization and the World (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press, 2009).

23. Ann Holohan, Networks of Democracy: Lessons from Kosovo for Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond (Stanford, CA: 

Stanford University Press, 2005), 51.

24. Anderson and Wallace, Opting Out of War, 47–52.

25. Ibid., 53.

26. Both Anderson and Wallace and Carpenter emphasize the importance of leadership and collective sense 

making, or the understanding of conflict events and trends, to a community’s response. See Anderson and 

Wallace, Opting Out of War, 53–54; Carpenter, Community Resilience, 98.

27. Carpenter, Community Resilience, 115.
42 USIP.ORG

PEACEWORKS 122

28. Varshney, Communal Violence, 18.

29. Carpenter, Community Resilience, 27.

30. Ibid., 90.

31. Ibid.

32. Ibid., 123.

33. Denoeux with Carter, “Guide to the Drivers,” 15–16, 21–27; Policy Task Team, “Development Response,” 3–4.

34. The enumerator training was essential. The first round, held before the first-round interviews, focused on 

the concepts of resilience and violent extremism and how to conduct open-ended interviews. Before the 

second-round questionnaire, the enumerators were trained further on resilience, especially specific capacities 

and strategies identified in the focus group discussions and first-round interviews, and on probing without 

leading respondents. 

35. James Khalil and Martine Zeuthen, “A Case Study of Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) Programming: 

Lessons from OTI’s Kenya Transition Initiative,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development

3, no. 1 (2014).


 5

About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan 

institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to 

help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict 

peacebuilding, and increase conflict-management tools, capacity, and 

intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering 

others with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Chairman of the Board: Steven J. Hadley

Vice Chairman: George E. Moose

President: Nancy Lindborg

Chief Financial Officer: Michael Graham

Board of Directors

Stephen J. Hadley (Chair), Principal, RiceHadleyGates, LLC, Washington, 

D.C. • George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The 

George Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Judy Ansley, Former 

Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under 

George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished 

Practitioner in Residence, Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced 

International Studies, Washington, D.C. • Joseph Eldridge, University 

Chaplain and Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of International 

Service, American University • Kerry Kennedy, President, Robert F. 

Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C. • Ikram 

U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC, Las Vegas, Nev. • 

Stephen D. Krasner, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International 

Relations, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. • John A. Lancaster, 

Former Executive Director, International Council on Independent Living, 

Potsdam, N.Y. • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason 

University, Fairfax, Va. • J. Robinson West, Chairman, PFC Energy, 

Washington, D.C. • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership 

Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

Members Ex Officio

John Kerry, Secretary of State • Ashton Carter, Secretary of Defense 

• Gregg F. Martin, Major General, U.S. Army; President, National 

Defense University • Nancy Lindborg, President, 

United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
2 Looking for Justice

Violent extremism often spreads through localized conflict, 

with extremist groups manipulating local grievances to gain 

position and traction. Both the international community 

and national governments have difficulty working in such 

small-scale and diverse conflict contexts. Understanding 

how communities undermine and regulate violent extremist 

groups helps assess local risk and vulnerability for improved, 

targeted support. This experimental, mixed-method 

study identifies key community resilience factors to violent 

extremism in urban neighborhoods in Kenya, including high 

levels of Christian-Muslim association and high-functioning 

community-led and -focused security initiatives. These 

community resilience factors could become part of an evidence-based foundation for successful prevention programming in and beyond Kenya.

Other USIP Publications

■ Peacebuilding and Resilience: How Society Responds to Violence by Lauren Van 

Metre and Jason Calder (Peaceworks, September 2016)

■ Atrocity Prevention through Dialogue by Sofía Sebastián and Jonas Claes 

(Special Report, August 2016)

■ Improving Accountability for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Africa by 

Ketty Anyeko, Kim Thuy Seelinger, and Julie Freccero (Peace Brief, June 

2016)

■ Supporting Civil Society to Combat Violent Extremism in Pakistan by Jumaina 

Siddiqui and Sehar Tariq (Peace Brief, June 2016)

■ Terrorism Prosecution in Pakistan by Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi (Peaceworks, 

April 2016)

PEACEWORKS • SEPTEMBER 2016 • NO. 122

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@ usip