Local-level Politics in Uganda: Institutional Landscapes at the Margins of the Benjamin Jones Development Studies Institute London School of Economics Submitted for the degree of PhD 2005 ABSTRACT Uganda has been considered one of Africa's few "success stories" over the past decade, an example of how a country can be transformed through a committed state bureaucracy. The thesis questions this view by looking at the experiences of development and change in a sub- parish in eastern Uganda. From this more local-level perspective, the thesis discusses the weakness of the state in the countryside, and incorporates the importance of religious and customary institutions. In place of a narrow view of politics, focused on reforms and policies coming from above, which rarely reach rural areas in a consistent or predictable way, the thesis describes political developments within a rural community. The thesis rests on two premises. First, that the state in rural Uganda has been too weak to support an effective bureaucratic presence in the countryside. Second, that politics at the local-level is an "open-ended" business, better understood through investigating a range of institutional spaces and activities, rather than a particular set of actions, or a single bureaucracy. Oledai sub-parish, which provides the empirical material for the thesis, was far removed from the idea of state-sponsored success described in the literature. Villagers had to contend with a history of violence, with recent impoverishment, and with the reality that the rural economy was unimportant in maintaining the structures of the government system. The thesis shows that the marginalisation of the countryside came at a time when central and local government structures had become increasingly reliant on funding from abroad. Aside from the analysing the weakness of the state bureaucracy, the thesis goes on to discuss broader changes in the life of the sub-parish, including the impact of a violent insurgency in the late 1980s. The thesis also looks at the role of churches and burial societies, institutions which have been largely ignored by the literature on political developments in Uganda. Religious and customary institutions, as well as the village court, provided spaces where political goals, such as settling disputes, building a career, or acquiring wealth, could be pursued. THE RETREAT OF THE STATE: 1993 TO THE PRESENT 76 Table 3.1 Declining livelihoods 77 What does the above tell us about Uganda's "success story" 79 CONCLUSION 81 CHAPTER 3, VILLAGE COUNCILS AS VILLAGE COURTS: THE RETREAT OF THE BUREAUCRATIC STATE FROM THE VILLAGE 84 INTRODUCTION 84 Table 3.1: Legislated and actual work of the parish chief and village council chairman 90 THE HISTORY OF THE STATE IN THE VILLAGE 91 a) Parish chief - the absent bureaucratic state 91 b) Elected councils - the state present in the form of the village court 98 c) MPs, party-politics and the Movement system 101 THE PRACTICE OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT SYSTEM OLEDAI 103 Table 3.2: Breakdown of court cases reported by the sub-parish council chairman 105 CASE STUDIES юб a) Akol Stanislas vs. the village council chairman 106 b) Omagor AIfi'ed against the sub-parish of Oledai 108 CONCLUSION M CHAPTER 4, PENTECOSTALISM IN THE SUB-PARISH: THE INCORPORATION OF BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIANITY 114 INTRODUCTION 114 THE NATURE OF PENTECOSTALISM 116 THE HISTORY OF PENTECOSTALISM IN THE TESO REGION 119 a) a marginal presence in the countryside before the 1980s 119 b) The growth of Pentecostalism: the insurgency and the 1990s 121 THE EXTENT OF INCORPORATION 123 Table 4.1: Committee positions of born-again Christians in Oledai 124 CASE STUDIES 125 a) Omadijohn Francis, a Pentecostal Christians becomes a "big man" in the village 125 b) a father and son settling a land dispute in church 129 THE LIMITS TO INCORPORATION 132 CONCLUSION 134 CHAPTER 5, ANGLICAN AND CATHOLIC CHURCHES: RESPONSES AND REACTIONS 137 INTRODUCTION 137 THE HISTORY OF MAINLINE CHURCHES IN RURAL TESO 138 a) Christianity as an instrumental and bureaucratic exercise: missions and education 139 b) examples of religious revival in Uganda 142 c) the present-day religious landscape: village churches and an absent clerical bureaucracy 745 RENEWAL FROM BELOW 148 a) charismatic groups, despite a weak church bureaucracy 148 b) rules, respectability and Pentecostalism 150 c) churches and burials: the significance of the insurgency in explaining change 152 CASE STUDIES 154 a) The burial of Edotun, part i: the Anglican church 154 b) Ohelai Samuel becomes trainee lay reader, despite losing a court case 158 CONCLUSION 160 CHAPTER 6, BURIAL SOCIETIES: INSTITUTIONALISING THE INSURGENCY 163 INTRODUCTION 163 A DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK OF BURIAL SOCIETIES 165 Table 6.1: the "tax rates" of different local-level institutions, 2002 169 THE DEVELOPMENT OF BURIAL SOCIETIES 170 a) The development of burials in the pre-colonial and colonial periods 170 h) the experience of death and burial during the years of insurgency and internment 173 c) the role of returnees in building up burial societies 175 BURIAL SOCIETIES: AN ASSORTMENT OF BORROWINGS 177 CASE STUDY 180 The burial ofEdotun, part 2: the importance of the burial society 180 Table 6.2: Average attendance of different sorts of meetings, 2002 182 DISCUSSION: BURIAL SOCIETIES MAKING A BREAK WITH THE PAST 182 CONCLUSION 184 CHAPTER 7, CONCLUSION: STUDYING LOCAL-LEVEL POLITICS IN UGANDA 187 THE ABSENCE OF THE STATE 187 CHURCHES AS PART OF THE CHANGING POLITICAL LANDSCAPE 189 BURIALS AND THE CHANGING POLITICS OF THE PAST 191 EXPLAINING INTSITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS 192 SEEING AROUND THE STATE 194 APPENDIX A: INTERVIEWS 198 a) Interviews: sub-parish of Oledai 198 b) Interviews: sub-parish of Agolitom 202 c) Interviews: others 206 d) Participants in group discussions in Oledai (conducted in Ateso) 206 e) Participants in group discussions in Agolitom (conducted in Ateso) 208 APPENDIX B: SURVEYS 211 a) household survey 211 b) social networks survey 223 c) church report 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY 235 MAPS Map A: Oledai sub-parish and the environs of Ngora sub-county .o. • r , I /) ] [ \ I . ~-·-T··_····· ··· •ti :. ~ ~ .. -- . I.:. .. .~ .. .. .of - !. e_ II I, I ;, ) . I -. I •. .o . ,, 00 • • 0 o \ r·. _ 1' r · o O Jup . : .' .o••' •·,rt :.'.. • • -. \\ .J. ' -' . / . i ~ "' - - - - :/ - - ·0,. " , .!. ... \ 0 I •• \ • •..~t --.. .':l. • 1 .../. < ,.-- ... ' I .. ,. .,. - r- • ~ .. .1. -... l'I , II.::' " . ' , "" ..­ .':.. ., .. I . " \ . , ~ ... .. .. , . ..·f· , . I • I -: -'._--' ~ :. : <~ -. ~Ir. .\ ·':.0 I I I • -,,; ~ r .:_- -, .. .-.. -. .... J " ., . ........ I ~ I t. " : !: .. ., . I I . I of ; ; I I I .,).e.-e...- - I I ~- ~ -- . , /I . , -' ~ ; .. I . j • la ~.r. ., ,. • _ .1 l _,_ . 1 . ,. , "'- i " ): . 1 D 0 /( ,', . ' .' I i I I i ,o , I " .' , ' i Oledai sub-parish is the area within the thick bla ck line. The unpopulated area In the central part of the sub-parish is covered with sw am py ground. Scale: lsquare = rkrn" Source: Map of Ngora County, Map Collection, School of Oriental and A frican Studies, Government of Uganda Survey, Lands and Mines D epartment, no ref. 6 Map B: Ngora county within the environs of Teso District (from 1956) Ilr, ,..".,. ..... --­ _---- -- "- T he area covered by map A is indicated by the rectangle in the bottom centre of the map. Source: Map Collection, School of Oriental and African Studies. Government of Uganda Survey. Lands and Mines D epart m ent, ref. E.46/224, (dated 1956). 7 Map C: Teso region within Uganda '.' ..o 4 T eso, as it was once administratively defined, is the area of t he m ap containe d w ithin the thick black line. Significant populations of Iteso are also found in Pallisa di strict, and a separate population, the "south Iteso", found on and around the border with western Kenya. Source: United Nations Cartographic Section (http: / /www.un.org/Depts/ Cartographic/ map/ profile/uganda.pdf) 8 Map D: Uganda's regions including ethnic groups Source: 'Map of Uganda's Ethnic Groups', original version by Eva Swantz-Rydberg (in Tripp 2000: xxix), also available at https://mywebspace.wisc.edu/atripp/UGANDA-ETHNIC-GROUPS0/020copy.jpg ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Some way into the thesis itself I discuss the importance of bricolage. Though it sounds complicated, bricolage means simply the piecing together of new ways of thinking or doing based on what is already there. The word can also be used to describe the way the thesis has itself been constructed, as it has been built up from the contributions of a number of people, places and institutions, whom I would like to acknowledge and thank. My thanks are due, first and foremost, to the people from the sub-parishes of Oledai and Agolitom who contributed their time, energy and analysis to the study. My thanks should also be extended to the staff at Vision Terudo, a local charitable organisation that provided me with a room to work in and a place to stay. In particular I would like to thank Churchill Ongole and Florence Among for their support and advice during my long stay in the area, and Ongit John, Isaiah Oonyu, Cuthbert Malinga and Aogon Sam for their friendship and conversation. In Kampala I have to thank Harriet Acham and Nathan Ogwang for their hospitality and friendship, for being my adoptive family. I must also thank my family back in the UK for their support and generosity throughout the thesis. To my parents, and to Nick and Matthew, my deepest thanks. At the London School of Economics I would like to thank the research and administrative staff for their support throughout the thesis research. My supervisor Liz Francis was immensely supportive of the thesis project. I would also like to thank Dru Daley, Sue Redgrave and Steph Davies for making my stays at the Development Studies Institute both productive and enjoyable. Rachel Wrangham, Thi Minh Ngo and Elliott Green provided help and support at critical moments in the thesis.