Abstract
This paper examines how digitally mediated dissent is securitised in hybrid regimes using Kenya's 2024-2025 protest cycle as a case study. Although the Copenhagen School gives precedence to audience acceptance in determining the success or failure of a securitising move, the paper critiques this viewpoint drawing on contemporary securitisation scholarship. Through a qualitative case study approach, the research draws on official state communications, social media content, media reports, human rights documentation, and the researcher's reflexive observations during the protests. The findings illustrate that although the #RejectFinanceBill movement was framed by the state as a threat to national stability, public safety, and the Kenyan economy, protestors consistently disputed these claims, arguing that dissent was anchored in genuine economic grievances, governance concerns, and constitutionally guaranteed rights. Despite sustained and visible contestation across domestic, digital, and international publics, the state implemented exceptional measures ranging from mass arrests, enforced disappearances, and the use of lethal force, to digital interventions including internet disruptions and algorithmic suppression. The article argues that securitisation succeeded not through broad public acceptance but through the compliance of operative institutional actors whose alignment with executive security logic substituted for societal consent. It posits that in hybrid political systems, securitisation is a power and practice-oriented process in which the capacity to act outweighs the need for persuasion, and advances the conceptual distinction between persuasive and operative audiences as a theoretical contribution to securitisation scholarship.
Recommended Citation
Gaciku, Dudley M.; Sudirman, Arfin; and Lanti, Irman G.
(2026)
"Securitisation Without Consent: Digital Dissent and State Power in Kenya’s 2024 Protests,"
Jurnal Wacana Politik: Vol. 11:
Iss.
3, Article 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24198/jwp.v11i3.1
Available at:
https://journal.unpad.ac.id/wacanapolitik/vol11/iss3/1
