Political Uncertainty, Violence and Hope in Uganda


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Political Uncertainty, Violence and Hope in Uganda: A Personal Account demonstrates both the tumultuous and hopeful aspects of Uganda’s political history. Much as the first 20 years of Uganda’s independence saw politics of experimentation, intrigue, and lack of ethics, sliding the country into a journey of uncertainty and violence, the latter years saw hope and economic progress. The book first introduces the author, both as a civilian and a soldier. Chapter 2 examines Milton Obote’s social, economic, and military policies, and how they catapulted Idi Amin to power in 1971. Chapter 3 crystallizes Uganda’s political uncertainty and violence, which saw over 300,000 Ugandans murdered under Amin. Subsequent chapters describe the armed national efforts to depose Amin and Obote from power. These culminated in Museveni’s takeover from the Okello Junta in 1986. The Museveni takeover triggered a series of political oppositions and insurgencies that spanned almost 20 years. The NRA/NRM has since neutralized and defeated those insurgencies, ushering in unprecedented peace and hope that have seen Uganda recover from economic quagmire and political turmoil to a developing country. Uganda is now bracing for middle-income status, which ushers in the book’s last chapter: Is There Hope for Uganda?




AF Press Clips


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AF Press Clips


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Living with Bad Surroundings


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Since 1986, the Acholi people of northern Uganda have lived in the crossfire of a violent civil war, with the Lord’s Resistance Army and other groups fighting the Ugandan government. Acholi have been murdered, maimed, and driven into displacement. Thousands of children have been abducted and forced to fight. Many observers have perceived Acholiland and northern Uganda to be an exception in contemporary Uganda, which has been celebrated by the international community for its increased political stability and particularly for its fight against AIDS. These observers tend to portray the Acholi as war-prone, whether because of religious fanaticism or intractable ethnic hatreds. In Living with Bad Surroundings, Sverker Finnström rejects these characterizations and challenges other simplistic explanations for the violence in northern Uganda. Foregrounding the narratives of individual Acholi, Finnström enables those most affected by the ongoing “dirty war” to explain how they participate in, comprehend, survive, and even resist it. Finnström draws on fieldwork conducted in northern Uganda between 1997 and 2006 to describe how the Acholi—especially the younger generation, those born into the era of civil strife—understand and attempt to control their moral universe and material circumstances. Structuring his argument around indigenous metaphors and images, notably the Acholi concepts of good and bad surroundings, he vividly renders struggles in war and the related ills of impoverishment, sickness, and marginalization. In this rich ethnography, Finnström provides a clear-eyed assessment of the historical, cultural, and political underpinnings of the civil war while maintaining his focus on Acholi efforts to achieve “good surroundings,” viable futures for themselves and their families.




Behind the Violence


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How Insurgency Begins


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Why do only some incipient rebel groups become viable challengers to governments? Only those that control local rumor networks survive.




Autocratization in Contemporary Uganda


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Autocratization in Contemporary Uganda analyses two interrelated outcomes: autocratisation, manifest in the deepening of personalist rule or Musevenism, and the regime resilience that has made Museveni one of Africa's current-longest surviving rulers. How has this feat been possible, and what has been the trajectory of Museveni's increasingly autocratic rule? Surveying that trajectory since 1986, the book takes as its primary focus the years since 2005; bringing to the fore the 'autocratic turn', placing it within a broader comparative lens, and enriching it with comparative references to cases outside of Uganda. While positing the notion of 'autocratic adaptability' as a defining hallmark of Museveni's rule, the book examines the factors and forces that have made that adaptability possible, analysing the dynamics around three keys themes: institutions, resources, and coalitions. Through empirical research, each chapter seeks to demonstrate how either one or two of these three variables have functioned in propelling autocratization and assuring regime resilience - producing theoretical and and comparative implications that reach beyond Uganda.




Uganda


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For the last three decades, Uganda has been one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. Globally praised as an African success story and heavily backed by international financial institutions, development agencies and bilateral donors, the country has become an exemplar of economic and political reform for those who espouse a neoliberal model of development. The neoliberal policies and the resulting restructuring of the country have been accompanied by narratives of progress, prosperity, and modernisation and justified in the name of development. But this self-celebratory narrative, which is critiqued by many in Uganda, masks the disruptive social impact of these reforms and silences the complex and persistent crises resulting from neoliberal transformation. Bringing together a range of leading scholars on the country, this collection represents a timely contribution to the debate around the New Uganda, one which confronts the often sanitised and largely depoliticised accounts of the Museveni government and its proponents. Harnessing a wealth of empirical materials, the contributors offer a critical, multi-disciplinary analysis of the unprecedented political, socio-economic, cultural and ecological transformations brought about by neoliberal capitalist restructuring since the 1980s. The result is the most comprehensive collective study to date of a neoliberal market society in contemporary Africa, offering crucial insights for other countries in the Global South.




Ethnographies of Uncertainty in Africa


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This collection explores the productive potential of uncertainty for people living in Africa as well as for scholars of Africa. Eight ethnographic case studies from across the continent examine how uncertainty is used to negotiate insecurity, create and conduct relationships, and act as a source for imagining the future.




Global Trends 2040


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"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.