ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to uncover how the broader organization of political power within Uganda's political settlement shapes efforts to promote gender equity through national policy processes. Specifically, it looks at the case study of the Domestic Violence Act of 2010. The chapter demonstrates that the patronage-based relationship between President Museveni and the women's movement that has emerged as Uganda's political settlement has evolved has generated important but limited dividends for women's empowerment in Uganda. Although gaining presidential support helped ensure the relatively swift passage of the bill, this support was conditional on the bill ruling out more fundamental challenges to gender relations with regards co-ownership of land and marital rape. The result was a diluted Domestic Violence Act that has been implemented only at the margins. The limited progress made by the government in ensuring implementation of this law reflects the increasingly low levels of state capacity and elite commitment to promoting gender equity in Uganda within a political settlement that has become increasingly weak and personalized in nature.
