ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the comparative impact of economic reform on the democratic transition process in East Africa. Western governments and, to some extent, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, have promoted simultaneous economic reform and democratic transition in Africa. Advocates contend that African states are too poor to sustain economic reform and democratic transition at the same time and that economic reform and growth must take precedence. Economic reform governments in poor multi-party democracies are vulnerable to anti-reform coalitions, which campaign against austerity and, upon gaining power, revive clientelism. The basis for Uganda's economic reform was established in the early 1980s, when the National Resistance Movement mobilized large numbers of Ugandans, especially peasant farmers, to fight the second Obote regime and set up rural political and economic structures. Economic reform brought the reduction of urban bias, which led to rising agricultural production and rural incomes and reductions in poverty.
