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The state of citizens' political knowledge in shaping local governance interest formulation patterns has been identified as a vital mechanism in democratic systems for centuries. Nevertheless, political knowledge proficiencies remain remarkably scanty among ordinary citizens in the developing world, with significantly few studies directly engaging this local governance reality. The paper discusses how political knowledge influences the changing local interest determination dynamics to reinforce local governance functionality in Uganda. From a sample size of 99 respondents, the study used descriptive qualitative methods and techniques to collect data and analyze the responses. The study found out that notwithstanding institutional inconsistencies, local farmers were considerably more influential in local interest determination compared to politically erudite citizen groups. There were limited structures for citizen participation in decision-making processes, yet likewise found nascent progressive virtual platforms for local interests' deliberations mostly based on digital and traditional media platforms. The nature of drivers which framed political knowledge were typically influenced by structural, political, economic and international dynamics. The study recommended that in order to address the local citizen participation constraints, profound local governance policy transformation interventions should be embarked on to reinforce local infrastructure, the local economy and expansion of education and the democratic space for civil society agencies' operations.

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Citizen competence in a democratic society is perceived as an essential mechanism for promoting political accountability in local governance. This paper, thus, qualitatively investigates the relationship between citizen competence and political accountability in Uganda’s local governance system across two discrete political regimes, during the post-independence period. Using an in-depth explorative design, it was established that citizens in both regimes were largely inarticulate, disengaged and uninvolved in determining local preferences, suggesting minimal link between citizen competence and the propensity to promote political accountability at district level. The data suggested that citizen competence was less influential in district politics for the greater part of the post-colonial period. Nonetheless, there were also episodes where citizens actively participated in enforcing political accountability at the grassroots under multiparty politics in both the Obote II and NRM regimes, with slight variations in the intensity and pattern between the two periods. Thus, the level of citizen competence and nature of local governance in Uganda mirror the political accountability practices at the local level, mainly shaped by civic challenges and the character of politics in Uganda during the periods studied regardless of differences and longevity. The paper recommended deliberate state intervention for mobilization of citizens and the establishment of state-engineered dynamic social networks to generate capacity for holding local leaders accountable and more empowered civil society to construct robust citizen competence programmes to foster political accountability.