Party, patronage and coercion in the NRM’S 2016 re-election in Uganda: imposed or embedded?

Vokes, Richard; Wilkins, Sam

doi:10.1080/17531055.2016.1279853

Cited by 27 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…I would argue that there has been a subtle shift in President Museveni's own rhetoric in recent years, away from a focus on what his government has putatively already achieved, towards the ways in which he is going to lead Uganda into a bright new future 12 . In light of recent trends in the political science literature on the country, it is tempting to interpret this as just another example of the veteran Ugandan leader's increasing drift towards autocracy, and of his ongoing attempts to remain in power for life (see Vokes and Wilkins 2016). However, to read such rhetoric in only such instrumental terms would be to miss the ways in which Museveni's words also now play on the wonderful possibilities for the country's future that many Ugandans can now see – and feel – all around them.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signs of development: photographic futurism and the politics of affect in Uganda

Vokes¹

2019

Africa

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This article contributes to recent scholarship on an emergent public political visual culture in Africa. Through an ethnographic study of political billboards and other government-sponsored public political imagery in Uganda, it argues that this new visual culture is primarily characterized by African states’ extensive use of post-photographic techniques as a means for projecting fantastic visions of their future development goals. However, drawing on recent insights from the ‘material turn’ in visual theory, it finds that – in Uganda's case at least – the potency of these new public visual artefacts may stem less from what they show than from how they invoke in their citizen-viewers an embodied sense of future possibilities. Once generated, this affective response can be mobilized by the state and its agents in the ‘here and now’, for political gain. The article looks at how this worked in the run-up to Uganda's 2016 presidential elections, when, in the context of major new spending on national infrastructure projects, the images and artefacts of this new visual culture served to greatly amplify the sense that all citizens would benefit from an emergent global capitalism. This inflated aspiration was mobilized in turn by the National Resistance Movement government as an integral part of its election campaign, and played a key role in returning the government to power.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Signs of development: photographic futurism and the politics of affect in Uganda

Vokes¹

2019

Africa

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“…In this context, the president himself oversees the NRM’s principal extraction activities such as the use of “ghost soldiers” and military procurement deals (Khisa, 2019; Tangri & Mwenda, 2013). At the same time, however, the NRM has used the proliferation of state organizations to broaden extraction for its grassroots-level machine (Vokes & Wilkins, 2016). In parties such as the Ethiopian People’s Democratic Revolutionary Front (EPDRF), a relatively stable (ethnic) elite alliance led the party’s elite to form a network of for-profit entities serving the party’s financial needs (Abegaz, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Jobs for Which Boys? Party Finance and the Politics of State Job Distribution in Africa

Sigman

2021

Comparative Political Studies

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Much of the literature on clientelism views the distribution of state jobs in the same way it does other forms of clientelistic exchange: as a mechanism of political mobilization. Despite its prevalence, this perspective does not account for the services that job recipients frequently provide to their political principals beyond the one-time exchange of political support. Drawing on extensive data from Benin and Ghana, including a comprehensive database of minister biographies, surveys of bureaucrats, administrative data, and elite interviews, this article argues that leaders distribute and manage state jobs in ways that enable them to extract and control state money for political financing. Whether incumbent leaders extract state resources themselves, delegate to elite party agents, or co-opt and coerce bureaucrats to divert money to the party shapes which jobs they distribute politically and to whom. The findings suggest that jobs are substantively different from other currencies of clientelistic exchange.

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“…Pre-proofs Dr. Dan Paget 7 Richard Volkes and Sam Wilkins argue that Museveni presents himself as supremely powerful, even 'monarchical', and he does so with cause; he has ruled Uganda continuously since 1986. 23 Therefore, paradoxically, Museveni both imbues himself with unrivalled power, and vilifies the powerful. Similarly, Ian Khama has been identified as a populist with an anti-elite discourse, even though he was the son of Botswana's first president and led a party which had ruled for 42 years continuously upon his nomination.…”

Section: Defining 'The Elite' In Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mistaken for populism: Magufuli, ambiguity and elitist plebeianism in Tanzania

Paget

2020

Journal of Political Ideologies

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Pre-proofs version.'The elite' in ideational conceptions of populism has gone ill-defined. This makes conceptions of populism elastic. This article asserts that a discourse should only qualify as populist if it constructs an elite that acts in its collective interests and possesses a majority of power across fields. These criteria narrow the definition of populism and reveals another type of discourse, christened here 'elitist plebeianism'. While populists bifurcate society between 'the people' and 'the elite', elitist plebeians trifurcate society between 'the common people', 'the elite' and a middle stratum. While populists vilify the elite, elitist plebeians heroise it and vilify the middle. In office, populists struggle to reconcile their power and their opposition to the powerful; elitist plebeians do not. This similarity in terms and structure facilitates the movement between populist and elitist plebeian discourses. That makes elitist plebeianism a ready-made script for so-called 'populists in power.' Tanzania provides proof of concept. Tanzania's opposition constructed CCM as a corrupt establishment. Magufuli and his party appropriated this discourse but relocated corruption from the elite to the bureaucracy and business, which they portrayed as less powerful than themselves; their discourse is not populist, but elitist plebeian.

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Party, patronage and coercion in the NRM’S 2016 re-election in Uganda: imposed or embedded?

Cited by 27 publications

References 35 publications

Signs of development: photographic futurism and the politics of affect in Uganda

Signs of development: photographic futurism and the politics of affect in Uganda

Which Jobs for Which Boys? Party Finance and the Politics of State Job Distribution in Africa

Mistaken for populism: Magufuli, ambiguity and elitist plebeianism in Tanzania

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