For a large segment of the urban poor in Kampala, Uganda, street vending has long served as a key livelihood strategy in the absence of formal employment opportunities and a public social safety net. This article explores the effects of dedemocratisation on the rights of street vendors in Kampala, describing how changes to local government institutions and processes have forced vendors to adopt new strategies to assert their rights in an environment of closed political space. It argues that for street vendors in the city, economic and social rights are fundamentally rooted in political rights. As de-democratisation has robbed them of their political rights, it has also robbed them of their ability to assert their right to engage in their economic activities, leaving them increasingly vulnerable and marginalised. Barring a fundamental change in the city's political landscape, the hardships that vendors face appear to have no end in sight.

Understanding the root causes of informal economic activity is crucial for the effective governance of the informal sphere. Precisely what these root causes are, however, is subject to significant debate. This article contributes to these debates by arguing that the state is central to the origin and evolution of informality. Stressing the importance of understanding informality through a historically rooted political economy approach, it analyzes the modern history of informal vending in Kampala, Uganda, and identifies six ways in which the state has fundamentally shaped informal economic activity in the city: colonial planning; a history of poor governance and instability; economic liberalization; geographic development trends; an ineffective taxation regime; and the self-interest of state officials. An appropriate understanding of the centrality of the state in the informal economy highlights the necessity of designing effective institutions, policies and interventions that prioritize the needs of the urban poor.

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The political evolution of Kampala under the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has profoundly affected the fortunes of the city's street vendors. This article examines the effects of institutional changes brought about by the NRM's efforts to monopolize power in the city, arguing that the twin forces of democratization and decentralization allowed street vending to flourish while the reversal of these processes precipitated its dramatic decline. Democratization and decentralization initiated a period of intense political competition in which vendors could trade political support for protection from politicians who were more interested in political survival than the implementation of policy. This ability was lost when the central government introduced a new city government that shifted the balance of power from elected politicians to appointed technocrats. The new city government has since sought legitimacy through development and urban management initiatives that aim to transform Kampala into a supposedly modern, well-organized city. In doing so, it has sought to eradicate street vending, a practice it sees as the antithesis of and an obstacle to its ambitions. Lacking the channels for political influence that they previously enjoyed, street vendors have been forced to face the full brunt of government repression.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on livelihoods everywhere, but especially in the informal economy where crucial forms of protection and security are often absent. A detailed understanding of the impacts for informal workers, the public policy approaches that could most effectively respond to their needs, and the barriers to such policy, is urgently needed. This paper discusses the results of a 2021 street vendor survey in Cali, Colombia, focusing on (1) vendors’ socioeconomic circumstances and (2) their political engagement and attitudes on key policy and governance issues. It argues that while the pandemic and the government responses to it negatively impacted street vendors, there are steps that government could have taken, and can still take, to address vendors’ needs and priorities. To ensure a just, equitable, sustainable recovery, and to protect economically marginalized groups from future crises, informal workers must be more meaningfully included in decision-making processes.