Politics
It’s Not a Goon Problem: It’s a Violence Market
A Coase-inspired reading of political violence as a market of demand, supply, brokerage, plausible deniability and rented force.
Suzie Mugwe • Public Affairs
Power, politics, economics and public life explained.
Articles on politics, economics, governance, public finance, institutions, and the everyday cost of state decisions.
About the writer
Suzie Mugwe writes about the hidden architecture of public decisions.
Her articles connect policy, power, economics, and lived experience — asking not only what government does, but who pays, who benefits, and what the household feels.
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Economics
From SACCO Savers to Asset Owners: The Radical Promise of Democratic Capital
A case for transforming SACCO savings into voluntary, professionally governed ownership of productive infrastructure without violating members’ trust.
Politics
Ndindi Nyoro and the Politics of the Donkey Between Two Bales
A Buridan-inspired reading of Ndindi Nyoro’s Finance Bill absence, fence-sitting politics, and the cost of refusing to choose when the record matters.
Economics
Ruto at the G7 and the Quiet Repricing of Africa
A Bagehot-inspired argument that Africa is punished by the price of perception, and that Ruto’s G7 diplomacy was a fight against the continent’s invisible risk tax.
Economics
The Unseen Budget: Seeing Beyond the KSh 4.8 Trillion
A Bastiat-inspired reading of Kenya’s KSh 4.8 trillion budget, focusing on the fiscal choices, trade-offs and quiet gains that are easy to miss.
Governance
School Arson Wave: Tyranny of the Timetable
Before the 1840s, time was a local affair in Great Britain. Every town kept its own clock by the sun, and noon in one town was not noon in the next. Then came the trains. In Nov...
Governance
Ebola Quarantine Facility: Defending the Indefensible
In 1854, London's Soho district was consumed by the worst cholera outbreak England had seen in a generation. The response of most residents and institutions was to flee. They...
Politics
Hassan Omar: The Anatomy of a Non-Apology Apology
In late 1992, United States Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon faced multiple accusations of sexual harassment from women who had worked with him across two decades. When the...
Economics
Fuel subsidies: If we must subsidize, subsidize the household not the pump
A sharp case for moving public support away from leaky commodity subsidies and toward the households that actually need cushioning.
Diplomacy
Hosting the Africa Forward Summit was Kenya’s Chutzpah moment
Kenya’s Africa Forward Summit moment as diplomatic audacity: not deference, but a claim to convening power and strategic centrality.
Politics
Governor Kangata’s exit from UDA: Principled or Calculated?
A reading of Governor Kang’ata’s UDA exit through Agikuyu ideas of dignified departure, political timing, and self-preservation.
Politics
Gaucho’s benefice and the politics of public boards appointments
Why Gaucho’s appointment to a hospital board is best understood through the old politics of benefice, community voice, and obligation.