“It’s not so much what you agree upon, what you write on paper, but something intangible that in the end determines the success of political cooperation,” stated the leader of the Uganda People’s Congress Dr. Olara Otunnu. Hoping to put an end to the dominant-party system of Uganda – where President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement had ruled since 1986 – in 2008, four parties of the opposition gathered under the banner of the Inter-Party Cooperation (IPC). Their intention was to field a single candidate for the 2011 general election, but the IPC collapsed five months before the election day. Through an analysis of official documents, media reports and primary data obtained from interviews with party leaders, this ePaper examines the dynamics of the negotiations which led to the formation and collapse of this coalition. It argues that the claims by party leaders that the coalition fell because of disagreements over whether or not to participate in the elections are but a veil to cover the much deeper relationship issues between coalition members, in which the real explanation for the IPC’s demise lies. Through identifying common grounds between former coalition members, this ePaper proposes new avenues for further cooperation between opposition parties. Among the several lessons to be drawn from the IPC’s downfall, the author emphasises the need for confidence building measures, in order to deal with the underlying feelings of mistrust among members.

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’s 2016 elections, which returned thirty-year incumbent President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) in yet another landslide, took place in an atmosphere of patronage, coercion and fraud. But is this diagnosis sufficient to understand the processes of voting and regime maintenance in Uganda today? Based on a series of detailed case studies from across Uganda, this book provides a more nuanced and complex picture of what the Museveni regime is, and how it keeps winning elections. Whilst not denying that various electoral malpractices are systemic to the regime’s survival, the authors find that these cannot be extricated from Uganda’s history, its wider social realities, and its local political cultures in which the NRM has become so embedded. In so doing, the authors – who include anthropologists, development specialists, historians, geographers, and political-scientists – develop new ways of thinking about the meaning of voting and elections in non-democratic Uganda, and elsewhere. This edition was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.

Based on contributions from leading scholars, this study generates a wealth of new empirical information about Latin American party systems. It also contributes richly to major theoretical and comparative debates about the effects of party systems on democratic politics, and about why some party systems are much more stable and predictable than others. Party Systems in Latin America builds on, challenges, and updates Mainwaring and Timothy Scully's seminal Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America (1995), which re-oriented the study of democratic party systems in the developing world. It is essential reading for scholars and students of comparative party systems, democracy, and Latin American politics. It shows that a stable and predictable party system facilitates important democratic processes and outcomes, but that building and maintaining such a party system has been the exception rather than the norm in contemporary Latin America.

The Role of Parliament

How does coalition governance shape voters' perceptions of government parties and how does this, in turn, influence party behaviors? Analyzing cross-national panel surveys, election results, experiments, legislative amendments, media reports, and parliamentary speeches, Fortunato finds that coalition compromise can damage parties' reputations for competence as well as their policy brands in the eyes of voters. This incentivizes cabinet partners to take stands against one another throughout the legislative process in order to protect themselves from potential electoral losses. The Cycle of Coalition has broad implications for our understanding of electoral outcomes, partisan choices in campaigns, government formation, and the policy-making process, voters' behaviors at the ballot box, and the overall effectiveness of governance.

Through an analysis of the recent political history of Tanzania and Uganda, Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions offers a novel explanation of why authoritarian parties and legislatures vary in strength, and why this variation matters. Michaela Collord elaborates a view of authoritarian political institutions as both reflecting and magnifying elite power dynamics. While there are many sources of elite power, the book centres on material power. It outlines how diverse trajectories of state-led capitalist development engender differing patterns of wealth accumulation and elite contestation across regimes. These differences, in turn, influence institutional landscapes. Where accumulation is more closely controlled by state and party leaders, as was true in Tanzania until economic liberalization in the 1980s, rival factions remain subdued. Ruling parties can then consolidate relatively strong institutional structures, and parliament remains marginal. Conversely, where a class of private wealth accumulators expands, as occurred in Tanzania after the 1980s and in Uganda after the National Resistance Movement took power in 1986, rival factions can more easily form, simultaneously eroding party institutions and encouraging greater legislative strength. Collord uses this analysis to reassess the significance of a stronger legislature. She considers its influence on distributive politics, both regressive and progressive. She also considers its relation to democratization, particularly in a context of broader liberalizing reforms. The book ultimately encourages a closer examination of how would-be democratic institutions interact with an underlying power distribution, shaping in whose interests they operate. Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, gender and political representation, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, comparative political thought, and the nature of the continent's engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The focus of the series is on sub-Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. General Editors Nic Cheeseman, Peace Medie, and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira.