Publication

This paper argues that young, uneducated and unemployed slum dwellers in Kenya are easy prey for terrorist recruiters from al-Shabaab and the so-called Islamic State. And if their own blighted lives don't provide sufficient reasons to radicalize, argues the paper's author, then there's also the endemic corruption in Kenya and the country's inability to find the right balance between national security and combating terrorism. To blunt terrorist recruitment in the country, the author ultimately provides some familiar recommendations -- i.e., 1) invest in the social development of poor neighborhoods and the youths who live in them, 2) tackle corruption, and 3) avoid practicing state terrorism.