Abstract
This edited collection is foregrounded in efforts to develop understandings of the ‘New Uganda’ by exploring how, why, by whom and with what outcomes Uganda has undergone dramatic transformations in recent decades. Opening this discussion, the collection recognizes the predominance of two competing discourses: (a) of Uganda as a neoliberal success story and (b) of Uganda in crisis. Subsequent discussions are presented as providing a radical and critical engagement with Uganda as a means of addressing gaps in dominant strands of academic work on the under-development of Uganda. Central to these discussions is a clear and concise summary of the country’s evolving political economy. From this succinct foundation, the subsequent chapters explore a range of key themes in the transformation of Ugandan politics, society and economy.
The overall focus of the collection is to develop a detailed understanding of the myriad ways in which shifting national and international development agendas and political landscapes have informed local outcomes. At the core of these engagements is a focus upon the strategic engagement of the Museveni-led government in Uganda with the World Bank and other international donors. From the outset, the contributors make clear that Museveni’s shift to embracing the neoliberal economic and development agendas of the World Bank has been integral to domestic policies, agendas and change. Crucially, the contributors argue, the neoliberal shift has perpetuated and often exacerbated structural barriers and inequalities, demonstrating a lack of national and international willingness and commitment to tackle these concerns. Instead, the adoption of particular policy agendas has produced a period of hegemonic stability cemented through the individualization of responsibility for welfare to individuals and appropriation of ‘good governance’ agendas to enhance state power and surveillance while marginalizing the space for civil society and a critical public sphere.
Aligned to these political changes, the contributors to this edited collection highlight how an increasing commodification of social services—education and health care in particular—is fueling a growing polarization of Ugandan society. Specifically, these divisions are expanding between the relatively wealthy, urban middle-classes and the (rural) poor: in essence, between those who have the financial capital to secure access to private sector schools and hospitals, and those who rely upon underfunded and under-resourced public-sector providers. These trends mean that ‘citizens were refashioned into clients’ (p. 196) for whom access to health, education and other services cease being a common or collective right and instead become an individualized privilege accessible to those with the ability to pay. More broadly, the collection highlights the ongoing processes through which individual citizens are increasingly rendered as responsible for their own well-being (by being entrepreneurial, securing individual financial security and access to health, education and social services) in ways which reduce demands upon the state.
Alongside the individualization and responsibilization of citizens, the neoliberal turn in the Ugandan government is identified as supporting various forms and processes of extractivism and accumulation by dispossession. Across forests, water, land and oil, it is clear that changes to land tenure, enclosures of land and water and other processes of dispossession are not only an embodiment of structural violence but supporting accumulation and profitability for the private sector. As a result, the contributors highlight the disempowerment of and increasing precarity of (rural) communities and further entrenching of social divisions within Ugandan society.
For many, the upshot of these processes is a foreclosing of economic and other opportunities—particularly for younger generations—and the risk of a growing disenfranchisement of sectors of Ugandan society. Thus, there are increasingly strategic practices of citizens for individual (often short-term) gain because of the logics of neoliberalism, as well as the increasing class-based stratification of society. Entwined in these processes, we see the narration of and exhortation to Ugandans as being good, moral citizens who embody neoliberal ethics and who are productive and self-reliant. These expectations and values do little to address the structural drivers of inequality and poverty, instead shifting the emphasis and responsibility to the individual. Thus, the citizen is positioned as the agent of their own (mis)fortune, overlooking the structural barriers which determine opportunities and life chances.
Overall, the collection offers an extensive and critical review of the insidious nature of neoliberal-driven development agendas in Uganda and the growing divisions within society. The concerns running throughout the collection point to the myriad fracture-lines growing within Uganda and the increasing intersections of these in ways which are not only exacerbating divisions between rich and poor, but also increasing the vulnerability and precarity of the majority. This book provides plentiful evidence of the everyday impacts of the country’s neoliberal journey to date and signals key areas of concern moving forwards as Ugandan society continues to work through the impacts and implications of a comprehensive neoliberal restructuring driven by both domestic and international power holders. The question that remains, therefore, is what next. How will these divisions and growing discontent play out? Ultimately, what will be the next chapter in Uganda’s neoliberal transformation?
The primary audience for this collection is undoubtedly scholars working on projects and topics relating to Ugandan development, politics and society. More broadly, the work will be an invaluable source for those seeking to engage with Uganda for the first time or seeking to understand how specific social, economic and political processes play out in different contexts in Uganda. The concise chapters would also provide excellent readings for both undergraduate and postgraduate students in development studies.