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Change in Uganda: A New Opening?
- Journal of Democracy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 15, Number 2, April 2004
- pp. 125-139
- 10.1353/jod.2004.0027
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
Over the last 18 years, the National Resistance Movement (NRM) under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni has ruled Uganda on the basis of a “non-party” semi-authoritarian regime. Since the beginning of 2003, they have been compelled to open the system up to uncontrolled multiparty competition. A number of factors explain this shift. including the persistence of opposition insurgency; the continuing opposition of the country’s two traditional parties; movement towards political pluralism in the two neighboring states with which Uganda has intimate economic, cultural and political relations; and the larger global political environment that continues to delegitimize authoritarian or even semi-authoritarian regimes. However, the ongoing processes of change are fraught with a great deal of uncertainties.