ABSTRACT
It is commonly asserted (in international relations’ textbooks, by journalists and politicians) that the political world is divided into states. Indeed, few ideas have spread as successfully as that of statehood. The Western ideal of the territorial state with its functioning bureaucracy, efficient services and committed officials, has a tremendous appeal for all political actors throughout the world. However, the representation of the world as a world of states is inadequate. As shall be shown in this article, even when state actors who have a classical understanding of their role (as in the case of Uganda’s current head of state Yoweri Museveni) undertake the task of state building, the outcome under current global circumstances is not a state in the classical sense but something else. The aim of this chapter is to draw some conclusions about changes in the nature of ‘statehood’ using the example of the political life of Uganda and by characterizing the political and social contradictions of Uganda as practical dilemma for the current head of state Yoveri Museveni.1 Museveni came into power in 1986 when his ‘National Resistance Army’ (NRA) entered the capital Kampala after five years of civil war. The end of this war2 is considered to be a turning point in the post-colonial history of Uganda, as the decay of the state during the rule of Idi Amin and Milton Obote in the 1970s and early 1980s had led to an unrestrained rule of violence. During this period almost every family lost members. The formal economy vanished and was replaced by a system of informal survival strategies known as magendo. From 1986 onwards, Museveni’s NRA steadily consolidated its position of power and Uganda became the ‘cherished child’ of international financial institutions. According to official figures Uganda’s economy is still growing at a rate far higher than the sub-Saharan African average. This, coupled with political 1 The most important accounts on Uganda’s post-colonial history are Mutibwa (1992), Sathyamurthy (1986) and the various volumes edited by Hansen and Twaddle (1988, 1991, 1994 and 1998). A good insight into various issues of Ugandan history and politics is also given by the contributions in Prunier and Calas (1994). 2 The capture of the capital was not, of course, the end of the war for the entire population. The new monopoly of violence remains contested in certain parts of the territory (particularly in the Northern districts) though to differing degrees.
