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Abstract
Political economists have long debated the relationship between decentralisation and conflict, with much discussion about how and what functions of government should be decentralised to the local level. There has been little discussion, however, about two key aspects of decentralisation: first, to which levels of local government power should be decentralised, and second, on what basis new decentralised districts should be created. In order to understand the relationship between these two aspects of decentralisation and conflict I investigate here the case of Uganda, where President Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Movement (NRM) government embarked on a radical decentralisation programme upon coming into power in 1986. I argue here that Uganda's decentralisation programme, while helping to reduce national-level conflict, has nonetheless replaced it with local-level conflict. This process has taken place in two ways. First, the concentration of local power at the district level has led to struggles over district leadership positions. Second, the huge expansion in the number of new districts has led to local-level conflict by altering relations between local ethnic groups.
Acknowledgements
This paper was prepared for presentation at the CRISE/University of Oxford Conference on Decentralisation, Federalism and Conflict, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 57 October 2006.The author thanks Donald Horowitz, John McGarry, Raufu Mustapha, and conference participants for suggestions; all errors, however, are my own.
Notes
1. CitationBardhan, Scarcity, Conflicts, and Cooperation, 105.
2. CitationBrancati, ‘Decentralisation: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?’
3. CitationTreisman, The Architecture of Government.
4. CitationFrancis and James, ‘Balancing Rural Poverty Reduction and Citizen Participation’, 325.
5. CitationJørgensen, Uganda, 308.
6. CitationMamdani, ‘The Limits of Museveni's Non-Party Rule’.
7. CitationKasfir, ‘Guerrillas and Civilian Participation’, 287–8.
8. CitationGolooba-Mutebi, ‘Decentralisation, Democracy, and Development’, 105, 109.
9. New Vision, 6/4/1993.
10. 1995 Constitution of Uganda, Chapter 11, Clause 193. Uganda was one of the first countries in Africa to introduce equalisation grants; CitationSteffensen and Trollegaard, ‘Fiscal Decentralisation and Sub-National Government Finance’, 51.
11. Thus, the sub-county received 65% of the total tax revenue, or 42%.
12. CitationGovernment of Uganda, Local Government Finance Commission Annual Report 2005.
13. Furly, ‘Democratisation in Uganda’, 93.
14. CitationMamdani, Citizen and Subject, 208.
15. NRC Hansard, 24/6/1987, 114; 25/6/1987, 127.
16. CitationMao, ‘The Northern Uganda Peace Process’.
17. CitationGreen, ‘Ethnicity and the Politics of Land Tenure Reform’.
18. In this regard, Museveni should be positively contrasted with the various Prime Ministers of India who have collectively used ‘President's Rule’ to take over the functioning of a federal state over 100 times since 1947.
19. CitationWunsch and Ottemoeller, ‘Uganda’, 207.
20. CitationGovernment of Uganda, Local Government Finance Commission Revenue Sharing Study, 28.
21. A person with an income of 32,000 Ush paid a GPT rate of 9.4% while people with incomes of 330,000 and 1.5 m Ush only paid 5.7% and 5.3%, respectively. CitationLivingstone and Charlton, ‘Evaluating Uganda's GPT’, 504-5.
22. Government of Uganda, Local Government Finance Commission Revenue Sharing Study, 4 & 28.
23. The East African, 9/8/2004.
24. This increase has largely come in the form of the 26 available conditional grants under the Poverty Action Fund (PAF), 71% of which is transferred to local governments. From 1998 to 2001, the PAF doubled as a percentage of the central government's budget, jumping from 17% to 34%. Government of Uganda, Local Government Finance Commission Revenue Sharing Study, 9; CitationSaito, Decentralisation and Development Partnerships, 127.
25. Parliament of Uganda Hansard, 3/10/2001.
26. Government of Uganda, Local Government Finance Commission Revenue Sharing Study, 24–5, 33–4.
27. Interview with Martin Kabuye, Kiboga, 15/11/2001.
28. Saito, Decentralisation and Development Partnerships, 138.
29. CitationJones, ‘Local Level Politics in Uganda’.
30. Mao, ‘The Northern Uganda Peace Process’.
31. Mukiga is the singular form for Bakiga; a similar rule applies to other Bantu ethnic groups like the Baganda, Banyankole and Banyoro.
32. For more on Kibaale see Green, ‘Demography, Diversity and Nativism in Contemporary Africa’.
33. CitationCrook, ‘Decentralisation and Poverty Reduction in Africa’.
34. In other words, it uses the same indirect voting system by which the RC committees above the village level were elected prior to the 1995 Constitution.
35. CitationTripp, ‘The Changing Face of Authoritarianism in Africa’, 17.
36. More recently the Ugandan Constitutional Court ruled that the 2006 LC elections were illegal under the new multi-party system: as a result the Parliament passed a law in February 2008 allowing for a new set of local elections across the country.
37. The Monitor, 14/6/2003, 25/4/2004.
38. CitationARD Inc., ‘Democracy and Governance Assessment’, 40.
39. Interview with Protaz Tigurihwayo, Masaka, 13/12/2001. Tigurihwayo also noted that his job involved ‘making sure the President's name is not damaged.’
40. Interview with Protaz Tigurihwayo, Masaka, 13/12/2001.
41. Quoted in CitationHuman Rights Watch, Hostile to Democracy, Chapter 6.
42. New Vision, 14/8/2004.
43. New Vision, 14/8/2004.
44. Constituent Assembly Proceedings, 6/7/1994, 624.
45. CitationGreen, ‘District Creation and Decentralisation in Uganda’.
46. Treisman, The Architecture of Government, 245.
47. CitationApter, ‘Local Government in Uganda’.
48. Jørgensen, Uganda, 309.
49. CitationGovernment of Uganda, Report of the Commission of Enquiry, 117.
50. Government of Uganda, Report of the Commission of Enquiry, 121–3.
51. The districts were created in two sets, with fourteen new ones inaugurated in 2005 and another ten in 2006.
52. While Brancati (Citation2006) prefers using the word ‘regional’ to describe such units, I prefer the acronym SNPU here as the word ‘region’ connotes the former provincial distinctions in Uganda.
53. In fact, Uganda has the fourth-highest number of SNPUs of any country in the world, after Russia (83), the Philippines (82) and the Turkey (81) and just ahead of Thailand (76). I owe this point to John McGarry.
54. Parliament of Uganda Hansard, 20/07/2005.
55. Parliament of Uganda Hansard, 20/07/2005.
56. Government of Uganda, Report of the Commission of Enquiry, 127–8.
57. Government of Uganda, Report of the Commission of Enquiry, 130.
58. New Vision, 4/8/1997.
59. CitationMamdani, When Victims Become Killers.
60. Parliament of Uganda Hansard, 20/7/2005.
61. The East African, 8/7/2002.
62. Green, ‘District Creation and Decentralisation in Uganda’.
63. CitationCollier and Hoeffler, ‘On Economic Causes of Civil War’.
64. After having been abolished by Milton Obote in 1967, four of Uganda's kingdoms (Busoga, Buganda, Bunyoro and Toro) were restored in 1993, albeit as cultural institutions with no power over taxation or administration. While districts thus do not currently contribute any funds to the upkeep of kingdom, Buganda monarchists have led the drive to create regional or federal tiers of government at the level of the kingdoms, which would then have both fiscal and political power. As LRA negotiators have also come out recently in support of a regional tier system, its eventual creation continues to look more and more likely, thereby creating a large incentive for kingdom governments to prevent districts under their nominal aegis from seceding.
65. CitationMwenda, ‘Uganda’.
66. New Vision, 24/4/2002.
67. CitationGreen, ‘Democracy, Diversity and Nativism in Contemporary Africa’.
68. The Monitor, 6/10/2006.
69. Golooba-Mutebi, ‘Decentralisation, Democracy and Development Administration in Uganda’ 149.
70. Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, 171.
71. Branch and Mampilly, ‘Winning the War, but Losing the Peace’.
72. Ukiwo, ‘Creation of Local Government Areas and Ethnic Conflicts in Nigeria’.
73. Treisman, The Architecture of Government, 239.
