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Gender and the bifurcated state: women in Uganda’s traditional authority
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Intervening in the enduring debate on the origins of the African state, this article examines the processes of producing custom in the Ugandan societies of precolonial Bunyoro and colonial Toro to trace the development of despotism. The participatory nature of generating customary truth in Bunyoro before European domination reflects the diffusion of power in a manner that hindered absolute rule. On the contrary, in colonial Toro, the inclusive mechanisms for making custom gave way to customary law produced by the colonial government and its native chiefs. This monopoly to determine customary law disguised as custom constituted the heart of the despotism of Toro Native Authority. Derivatively, the Rwenzururu resistance against Toro domination equally assumed a despotic character because it organised itself along the logic of the authority it confronted. The study interrogates the resurgent literature that associates the contemporary African state with precolonial history.
This paper does not directly engage the state-formation, political settlement and state-building debates in Africa but it foregrounds the notion of conversation as the lens through which to examine Rwanda’s state-building history. In particular, it explores an overlooked perspective from Rwanda’s state-building trajectory by focusing on a particular class of actors – women – whose voices also contributed to inter-elite and elite-society state-building from pre-colonial times. The paper examines how and why conversible spaces have been created in post-genocide Rwanda that are locally conceived yet given form by Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) elites. It shows that these spaces are progressions of a long history of state-building conversations in Rwanda that pre-date colonialism. The paper asks how and why have conversible spaces for peace and state-building evolved over time? To what extent do their contemporary form have the potential for being genuinely transformative? What do these processes mean for future peace and state building in Rwanda? In addressing these questions, this paper foregrounds women’s agency and contributions to state-building in Rwanda over time. It shows that while there is evidence that women’s agency has evolved from covert to overt spaces, limitations to women’s influence of peace-building and state-building conversations still exist particularly for those whose visions of society diverge from that of the ruling party Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
Kanjogera looms large in Rwandan history as a Queen Mother (1895–1931) – a position equal to that of the king – who wielded extraordinary political power. While she was not the first Rwandan woman to exercise this kind of power, she is arguably the most widely remembered in Rwandan popular culture largely due to the brutalities she allegedly inflicted upon her perceived enemies. But why do Kanjogera’s violent excesses stand out when other monarchical figures also occasionally used violence to maintain or expand their power? What might the way her name is invoked in the present tell us about modern Rwandan gender norms and people’s attitudes toward women who exercise significant political power? We respond to these questions by examining the permissible behaviours of Rwandan women political elites in historical perspective. Following an overview of Kanjogera’s political legacy, we turn our attention to two First Ladies, Agathe Kanziga (1973–1994) and Jeannette Kagame (2000-present) who, for different reasons, are occasionally referred to as modern incarnations of Kanjogera. In these two cases, we argue Kanjogera’s name serves as a rhetorical device that reveals ongoing anxieties about women exercising significant political power, while simultaneously undermining the politically prominent men with whom they are associated.
In the Rwenzori region, a range of historical, socioeconomic and political tensions have in past years resulted in a series of deadly clashes between different ethnic communities. Patronage politics of recognition of cultural kingdoms and district creation critically drives the manifestation of these tensions in ethnic violence, especially in the context of electoral contest.
Despite the popularity of electoral gender quotas, the substantive impact of quotas on the plenary behavior of members of parliament (MPs) has yet to be thoroughly empirically explored, and in particular, there is a dearth of evidence from non-Western cases. Here we create a unique content analysis dataset from 14 years (1998–2011) of plenary debates, including the contents of more than 150,000 unique MP speeches recorded in some 40,000 pages of the Ugandan parliamentary Hansard to test how MP characteristics affect patterns of gender-related legislative speech. We find that female MPs speak about issues related to women's interests significantly more than male MPs. Further, we find no evidence of significant differences between female MPs elected with and without quotas, suggesting that, in the Ugandan case, gender is a more salient predictor of the tendency to “speak for women” than electoral pathway. To our knowledge, this is the first study that examines the effectiveness of quotas in promoting women's substantive representation in parliamentary debates across all policy domains over a significant time period. We discuss the implications of these findings in the Ugandan context, as well as how our evidence speaks to substantive representation through reserved seat quotas in semi-authoritarian regimes more broadly.
This article discusses how Wangari Maathai’s life experiences narrated in her autobiography Unbowed offers an opportunity for discussing the contradictions surrounding the perception, place and identity of women in African politics. Against the backdrop of gendered nationalism which glorifies the role and place of women in the construction of nations, the article presents a different reality of how some male leaders of postcolonial nation states like the Kenyan example, silences the voices of women politicians by urging them to behave like ‘proper women’. Maathai’s autobiography demonstrates that the social construction of womanhood in African politics is influenced by socio-cultural and patriarchal ideologies that construct the ideal African woman as the docile one, the one who does not question male authority. Maathai’s autobiography becomes a lens that can be used to view and question the social construction of womanhood versus manhood and the influence on gender power relations on women’s participation in the politics of the postcolonial nation states in Africa.
During the past two decades, neopatrimonialism has become the convenient, all purpose, and ubiquitous moniker for African governance. The school of thought behind this research program, which the author refers to as the neopatrimonialism school, has produced an impressive literature on Africa. Its analysis informs policymakers and its language permeates media reportage on African states. While neopatrimonialism has long been a focus of development studies, in recent times it has assumed politically and economically exigent status. The school identifies causal links between neopatrimonialism and economic performance, and makes predictions drawing from what is referred to as the "logic of neopatrimonialism." Neopatrimonialism is said to account for trade policies, hyperinflation, economic stagnation, low investment in infrastructure, urban bias, andultimately, the lack of economic development in Africa. This article examines the empirical basis of predictions and policy prescriptions. It argues that while descriptive of the social practices of the states and individuals that occupy different positions within African societies, the concept of neopatrimonialism has little analytical content and no predictive value with respect to economic policy and performance.
This article charts a new direction in gender quota research by examining whether female legislators in general, and quota recipients in particular, are accorded respect and authority in plenary debates. We measure this recognition in relation to the number of times an individual member of parliament (MP) is referred to by name in plenary debates. We use a unique dataset from the Ugandan parliament to assess the determinants of MP name recognition in plenary debates over an eight-year period (2001–08). Controlling for other possible determinants of MP recognition, we find that women elected to reserved seats are significantly less recognised in plenary debates over time as compared to their male and female colleagues in open seats.
Quota policies securing the presence of marginalised groups in decision-making bodies have been adopted across sub-Saharan Africa. These policies are frequently understood through the lens of a pluralist perspective. This stance is not appropriate in African regimes characterised by executive dominance. Through a qualitative study of official documents, newspaper articles and interviews conducted during two field studies in Uganda in 2005 and 2010, this article shows how the understanding of quota policies in Africa may gain from the corporatist debate on interest representation. The analysis reveals that the incumbent National Resistance Movement has employed the reserved seat policy strategically to maintain its dominant position, and that strategies for using the quota system have evolved gradually over time in response to key political events, and the interests of group activists at the local and national levels with vested interests in its survival.
Globally, there is a significant gender gap in political engagement between men and women; however, this gender gap varies both across countries and within countries over time. Previous research has argued that the inclusion of women in elite political positions encourages women’s political engagement at the citizen level—by augmenting women’s symbolic representation—and can reduce this gender gap. Using Afrobarometer data from 20 African countries across four waves of surveys from 1999 to 2008, we employ an interactive multilevel model that controls for the sex of the respondent, the percentage of women in the legislature, and the interaction of these two variables. We find that as women’s descriptive representation increases, the political engagement gender gap diminishes. This finding is robust across several measures of political engagement. Our findings suggest that the incorporation of women into political institutions encourages the political engagement of women at the citizen level.
There are more women in politics in Uganda and South Africa today than in many more developed democracies. This significant achievement owes to explicit affirmative action interventions in political institutions and processes to favour women's participation. This article analyses these measures for their effectiveness in bringing more women into government, and for their impact on the perceived legitimacy of women in power. It goes on to stress that there is a difference between a numerical increase in women representatives, and the representation of women's interests in government decision‐making. The one does not automatically lead to the other, not just because individual women politicians cannot all be assumed to be concerned with gender equity, but because of institutionalised resistance to gender equity within the apparatus of governance. This problem is exacerbated in the context of structural adjustment, which rules out social welfare measures to subsidise women's reproductive contributions to the economy and thereby level the economic playing field between women and men. In spite of these obstacles, women in power in Uganda and South Africa have taken significant steps to articulate women's interests in politics, with a particular focus on problems of violence against women.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. It is humbling—and more than a little regrettable—to find myself writing about the kingdom of Buganda’s unresolved place within the larger Ugandan polity, forty-nine years after independence and a full fifty years since Transition published its first issue in Kampala. Indeed, how we choose to see Buganda today—as either a pre-colonial vestige, unevolved from days long gone, or as an entity deserving of some kind of federalized, political autonomy within Uganda—has never been fully resolved. At one end of the spectrum are those Ugandans who would like to see the kingdom fully integrated and absorbed into a unitary republic that minimizes or even obliterates differences, while amplifying what is seen as common to all groups throughout the country. At the other end are the people of Buganda, whose hunger for a degree of autonomy for the ancient kingdom remains undiminished. And then there are those who wonder if the binaries are too extreme. Those who hope for a middle ground are nervous about what they see as the risks of having a kingdom with political power thriving within a country whose constitution defines it as a republic. Yet, they also know that past attempts at suppressing Buganda’s demands have been futile, and that the Buganda question must be settled once and for all.
The role of kingdoms in modern-day Uganda—political entities that, in many ways, existed as actual states before colonialism—has always been difficult for postcolonial Uganda to negotiate. In September of 2009, we saw an explosion of rioting in Kampala, which is part of the kingdom’s historic territory, as thousands of young people took to the streets to protest a symbolic power play by the Ugandan government against the king of Buganda, Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II. Tensions between the two sides had been rising for a while, although the immediate cause of the riots was the government’s decision to block the kabaka (the king) from traveling to an area within the kingdom’s territory, where the government was in the process of creating an autonomous chiefdom whose new ruler opposed the kabaka’s visit. According to the government, if the kabaka were to travel there, his security could not be guaranteed.
The mere fact that such an event, which to a casual observer might appear minor, could trigger riots that left dozens dead, over eight hundred [End Page B-10] arrested, and an immense amount of property damaged is a testament to the emotive power and political fealty that kingdoms in general—and Buganda in particular—are able to command in Uganda, a country that has been a constitutional republic for half a century, and where, for thirty years, kingdoms did not exist at all because they had been abolished. Certainly today, in the age of Tahrir Square, the government can’t simply wish this political fealty away, or pretend it doesn’t exist. It does.
Kabaka Edward Mutesa II (b. 1924 – d. 1969). First President of the Republic of Uganda and the King of Buganda. Father of the current kabaka. Photo taken during independence celebrations, 1962. Courtesy of Monitor Publications Ltd.
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Kabaka Mutesa I (b. 1837 – d. 1884). Thirty-second King of Buganda. Great-great-grandfather of the current kabaka. Courtesy of New Vision Printing and Publishing Co.
The question, of course, is how the Ugandan government should handle it. According to some observers, whenever the central government suffers a crisis of legitimacy from the crushing poverty, the barely-there public services, and the rampant inequality that our political system knowingly condones, precolonial institutions like Buganda are there to fill the ideological gap. But simply fixing service delivery, for instance, isn’t going to cause the power of these institutions to dissipate. And the Buganda monarchy in particular is unique among traditional institutions throughout the country. The tremendous loyalty it commands cannot and should not be dismissed as only a reaction to the incompetence of the central government.
Then there are those who claim that a weak, multiethnic state like Uganda cannot...
This paper argues that the experiences of colonialism in Africa have led to the emergence of a unique historical configuration in modern postcolonial Africa: the existence of two publics instead of one public, as in the West. Many of Africa's political problems are due to the dialectical relationships between the two publics. I shall characterize these two publics and attempt to explain some of Africa's political features within the matrix of these publics. In order to give some empirical content to the distinction drawn here, I shall illustrate the issues raised with examples from Nigeria.
This book investigates the ways in which the war on terror has transformed the postcolonial state in Africa. Taking American intervention in Islamic education in Uganda as the entry point, the book demonstrates how state control over Islamic truth production and everyday Muslim life has increased.
During the colonial period, the Muslims in Uganda were governed in two ways: partly as lesser citizens within the Christian-dominated civil sphere and partly as members of a distinct Muslim domain. In this domain, a local system of Islamic education developed with a degree of autonomy that reflected the limits of the colonial state in shaping the Muslim subject. In the subsequent postcolonial period, systems of patronage and clientalistic networks dominated, and Muslim leaders were co-opted by the state, but without much real interference in the day-to-day lives of ordinary Muslims. However, as part of the war on terror, the US State Department seeks to bring the mechanisms of Islamic truth production, especially the madrasa, under direct state control and civil society scrutiny. This book argues that the "Muslim domain as a separate entity is coming to an end as it is being absorbed into the civil sphere, unifying the state’s domination of society." The book also analyzes local Ugandan Muslim initiatives to modernise and contextualize their own education and religion and how these initiatives are shaped by and transcend the dominant power.
A thorough exploration of US foreign policy and Islamic education, this book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Political Studies, African Studies, and Religious Studies.
This article explores the ways in which Latin American decolonial theory is drawn on to make sense of colonial legacies in contemporary Africa. For Latin American decolonial theory, colonialism is characterized by enforced assimilation enacted through epistemic violence. Latin American decolonial theory self-consciously rejects thinking about colonialism as historically specific in favor of the more abstract concept of coloniality. When Latin American decolonial theory travels to Africa, its emphasis on colonial assimilation obscures a significant experience of colonialism that enforced difference rather than assimilation. The article discusses the key underpinnings of apartheid education as a form of colonial education, in order to show how colonialism was responsive to particular conditions and combined both epistemology and institutions. To think the problem of colonialism in the present requires a comparative account of the problem of colonialism that embraces both the history of assimilation and the history of difference in a way that survives colonial assimilation.
This article explores how the legacy of European colonialism and its role in transforming gender relations globally, shapes post-Soviet Russian masculinities. It points to historical connections between European and Russian/Soviet colonial projects, both of which relied on the notion of ‘progress’ in gender relations. Drawing on analysis of biographical interviews with a diverse sample of Russian men interviewed in Russia and the UK, this work identifies how the research participants use the core modern/colonial narratives to establish their individual masculinities. Shifting from a common conceptualisation of Russian masculinities as ‘traditional’, ‘conservative’ and ‘macho’, I show that they are instead, closely bound up with the European project of modernity/coloniality. The study advances the analysis of postcolonial masculinities and posits an agenda for decolonisation of sociological research on global masculinities.
This essay collects four decades of my own reflections, as an anthropologist and feminist, on gender and coloniality across various contexts in Latin America. It also highlights the decolonial methodology and vocabulary that I have had to develop in my various roles as scholar, public intellectual, and expert witness over the years. Briefly, what I present here is a decolonial feminist perspective that argues for the existence of a patriarchal political order in communal societies before colonization. Yet, in my view, precolonial gender has a dual structure that is plural in essence and differs markedly from the binary gender structure of colonial-modern societies, which works in terms of a One and its marginalized others. As I argue, the capturing and transformation of precolonial dual gender structures by the modern gender system exacerbates inequality, increases violence against women, and disempowers them politically. For that reason, I speak of “low-intensity” and “high-intensity” patriarchal systems.
This article examines why the emancipation of ethnic groups has failed to address ethnic conflicts in Uganda. Successive Ugandan governments, especially the current regime of President Yoweri Museveni, have attempted to end the country’s history of ethnic strife by creating separate constituencies, separate districts and separate kingdoms for marginalised ethnic groups to free them from the domination of powerful ethnic groups. Focussing on the Rwenzori area of western Uganda where ethnic violence is severest, I show how the approach of ethnic emancipation reproduces ethnicity as the basis for political inclusion and escalates rather than abates ethnic contestations. This study should shed more light on the challenge of ethnic federalism in other countries like Ethiopia and Nigeria.
Tanzania and Uganda are among the most cited countries employing reserved-seat quotas. They adopted these quotas in 1985 and 1989, respectively. However, the two countries use different mechanisms to recruit reserved-seat members of parliament (MPs). Drawing on interview data from Tanzania and Uganda, this study compares the two models in terms of their effectiveness in facilitating the transfer of female MPs to non-quota seats in subsequent elections, thereby furthering women's sustainable representation. We find that the Tanzanian model is superior because it compartmentalises quota MPs in reserved seats less than the Ugandan model. The Ugandan model creates a gendered perception that constituency seats are for males and quota seats are for females – as if each sex has a distinct category of parliamentary seats. This perception affects each step of the switch to a non-quota seat, from the decision to switch to party nominations to voters’ decisions at the polls.
While dictatorships perform worse than democracies in respect for most human rights, a large number of autocracies have prioritized the advancement of women’s rights. We present a theory of authoritarian rights provision that focuses on the incentives for dictatorships to secure women’s loyalty, and we identify the particular capacity of institutionalized party-based regimes to supply—and capitalize from—women’s rights policies. Analyzing a comprehensive sample of authoritarian regimes from 1963-2009, we find that party-based regimes are associated with greater economic and political rights for women irrespective of whether they hold multiparty elections. A comparative exploration of authoritarian Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya sheds further light on these findings and examines alternative explanations. Our account of women’s rights as a tool of autocratic party coalition-building contrasts with the provision of civil and associational rights—so-called “coordination goods”—which represents a concession to the opposition and tends to accompany liberalization.
When the National Resistance Movement (NRM) came to power in 1986, its cadres overflowed with reformist zeal. They set out to transform Uganda’s public life, put an end to ethnic division, and promote local democracy. Today much of this reformist energy has dissipated, and undemocratic kingdoms largely define the cultural landscape. This essay attempts to explain how these things came to pass. It argues that the heritage economy offered NRM officials and other brokers an ensemble of bureaucratic techniques with which to naturalize and standardize cultures. Discomfited by the enduring salience of the occult among the people they governed, and alive to the new opportunities that the global heritage economy offered, the secular men of the NRM turned to managers who could superintend cultural life. In the field of medical practice NRM authorities delegated considerable authority to an organization called “Uganda N’eddagala Lyayo” (Uganda and Its Medicines), which worked to transform the situational and occultist knowledge of healers into the standardized repertoire of traditional medicine. In politics, NRM authorities turned to kings as brokers of tradition and as spokesmen for their people. The commercial impulse to trademark cultures and identify heritage products went hand-in-hand with the creation of unrepresentative political hierarchies. The 2016 presidential election was a further occasion for the reinforcement of monocultural, undemocratic forms of local government.
This study of the politics of gender in Igbo society challenges the received orthodoxies of social anthropology that all women in pre-colonial African societies were in a subordinate position. In investigation of that part of southeastern Nigeria where the famous women's riots of 1929 led to a flood of social research, the author argues that sex and gender did not necessarily coincide in pre-colonial society. Examines what structures allowed women to achieve the measure of power they undoubtedly did, and shows how roles were not rigidly masculinized or feminized (a fact reflected in the absence of gender prefixes in the Igbo language). Women could play roles usually monopolized by men and were then classified as males for the purposes of power - a classification facilitated by women's independent economic resource and the existence of a strong goddess-focussed religion. The colonial period brought economic changes that undermined women's monopoly over the scale of certain foods and reduced the economic sanctions they could wield over men. In the modern period, it is argued that these patriarchal tendencies have continued and intensified. A series of basic changes are outlined whereby the continuing deterioration in Nigerian women's power and status can be reversed. -from Publisher
Gendercentric models are rife in African Studies, and African art historical studies are no exception. Approaches that assume a genderdichotomized view of society are necessarily male-dominant, because in our time, patriarchy is the main expression of gender divisions. Two claims emerge from this biased branding of African art. First, that traditionally in Africa only men make art or engage in the production of important art. Second, that materials for making art are gender-specific: metals are for men, clay is for women; so goes the refrain. In fact, the second claim is actually expressed as a restriction against women's use of iron, and there is no obverse understanding that men are or can be constrained from using any material, including clay. Being male is assumed to be, everywhere in "traditional Africa," a mark of privilege, if not license. The effect of this antifemale stance is to place women at the receiving end of the gaze. But how and where did the claims that women are not artists, and that materials for making art are gender identifiable, originate? Many of these genderist and sexist ideas are based on observations of white adventurers, colonial ethnographers, missionaries, and colonial officials whose ethnocentric biases are very much tied up with their dominant positions and ideas about white racial and cultural superiority. Much of their intellectual engagement with Africa has been about how to fit African lives into their prefabricated theories. Despite the fact that some of the most reprehensible early European racist ideas about Africans have been thoroughly discredited, sexist notions have not. But this is not to say that racism and sexism are not intertwined. Why, then, do the most egregious gender-discriminatory claims continue to gain traction? Three main reasons are immediately apparent. First, many of the assumptions that white cultural imperialists and colonizers made about African art and societies have been left largely unquestioned. Embraced as received scholarly ideas, such claims are repeated across time and space by contemporary writers of all stripes, including Africans. Second, I suspect that some African male scholars have also embraced such sexist statements because they erroneously believe that to do so favors them today as a gender-identified group. Finally, many scholars continue to treat gender categories and gender dichotomies as natural, and therefore take expressions and practices of male dominance for granted in any time or place in which they are found. Decades of research have shown that gender is historical and socially constructed. I make a distinction between what I call genderist claims and sexist claims. Genderism is the idea that gender categories in human organization are timeless and universal. Sexism is the idea that male dominance is natural. More important, the homogenization and consequent miniaturizing of Africa's many nations, peoples, and cultures are the first indications of the problem of overly broad generalizations. Such universalizing about the continent is difficult to sustain, if not totally irrational. With regard to art and artistry in particular, this kind of continent-wide generalization is simply meaningless. Fundamentally, the most egregious part of the problem is the way in which such sweeping statements place the whole of the continent under the Western gaze, arrogantly reducing such a huge, diverse entity into one place and a single unit of analysis. As soon as one attempts to apply those statements to particular cultures and specific places, however, one discovers that such claims are false, or at best wanting. For example, in a paper on "African" ceramics, Jerome Vogel writes: "Throughout Africa, pottery is made primarily by women. . . . Men do make pots among a few groups, like the Hausa of Northern Nigeria, but this is an exception."1 The idea that millions of Hausa men and women are among "a few groups" is laughable, and begs the question: Who made the rules from which millions of Hausa are an exception? Certainly not Hausa people. From the perspective of Hausa communities in which men make pots, there is nothing exceptional about it, because there is no such rule. It is just a fact, not an exception. The exception exists only in the glazed eyes of the Western beholder. We have since discovered more "exceptions" across the continent to this Euro-American-made rule that African men do not make pottery; in Ghana, Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Zambia, we find men sculpting clay in a variety of ethnic groups and nationalities.2 In the face of these biases, distortions, misrepresentations, and misunderstandings, it is clear that we must develop and highlight Africacentered approaches. Over the years, a number of African scholars have advocated for indigenous paradigms in apprehending art and artistry, and here are two examples. The cultural studies scholar Olabiyi Yai admonishes us that in approaching African art, we must examine all taken-for-granted assumptions, even if they are foundational to our disciplines, and that we must take indigenous discourses on art and art history seriously in our discussions.3 Similarly, art historian Rowland Abiodun advises that in the study of African art, we must try to understand an artwork in its cultural depth, as the expression of local thought or belief systems.4 Taking seriously the cautionary advice of both Yai and Abiodun, my goal in this chapter is to interrogate prevailing gendered approaches to traditional Yoruba art and art history, and then, drawing from Yoruba cultural values and social practices, elaborate the relationship between art and motherhood, procreation and artistry. In The Invention of Women, I show that gender is not an ontological category in the Yoruba world. In contrast, in Western thought gender is assumed to be ontological, and therefore timeless and universal. Consequently, the institution of motherhood in Western and scholarly discourses that derive from their dominance is represented as paradigmatic of female gender. But in the Yoruba ethos, motherhood is not about gender. The presence of categories that have to do with procreation and motherhood does not necessarily suggest the inherent nature of gender categories. In fact, as I argued in an earlier work, gender in Yoruba society is a colonial category that emerged during the period of European ascendancy and dominance. Gender by definition is a duality: it is about two categories in relation to each other, often oppositionally constructed. Motherhood in the Yoruba worldsense is a singular category that is unparalleled by any other. Fatherhood is not its counterpart. The roots of gender categories in contemporary Yoruba society are colonial.
Women's rights and customary law are often understood as being in opposition to one another. This article challenges the usefulness of the prevailing custom/rights dichotomy, arguing that it obscures the way in which struggles to claim resources such as land combine 'human rights' equality claims with claims to customary entitlements. The article focuses on contestation over who has the power to define custom, rights and customary entitlements. It discusses the democratic potential inherent in Constitutional Court judgments that define customary law as 'living law' reflecting changing practice, and the dangers posed by national legislation that reinforces the power of traditional leaders to unilaterally define custom. It argues for legal strategies that engage with, and support, the struggles for change taking place at the interface between custom and rights in the former reserves. We draw on insights about the nature of rights and rights struggles in the work of Nedelsky, Nyamu Musembi and Merry to argue for an approach to rights that focuses on the relationships and power relations that rights mediate, rather than solely on rights as 'boundaries of autonomy'. Moreover, engaging with processes of women claiming, redefining and 'vernacularising' rights within their communities relates directly to the project of engendering socio-economic rights, given the primacy of claims of need, and of access to material resources, within indigenous constructs of relative rights.
Introduction One of the major achievements in the development of human rights has been the recognition that women’s rights are human rights and that issues of gender equality should form an integral part of international relations. It is now recognized that women’s human rights are inalienable and an indivisible part of universal human rights, which includes the right to full and equal participation with men in the political, civil, economic, social, and cultural life at all levels. The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (the Women’s Convention) covers women’s human rights in all aspects of their lives. At the regional level, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa pays special attention to women’s human rights in Africa. These international and regional instruments, to which Uganda is a party, provide a framework for the elimination of gender-based discrimination generally and the protection of women’s right to equality in particular.
Cet article esquisse une explication réaliste de la participation croissante des femmes dans le processus politique en Ouganda. Notons aussi que divers facteurs ont contribué à la participation des femmes à la chose politique, tels que l'exigence par les femme et les associations féminines d'une plus grande participation, l'influence du féminisme mondial et l'instabilité de l'histoire politique et économique de l'Ouganda qui a ouvert les portes à de nouvelles initiatives politiques. Cependant nous soulignons que le rôle croissant des femmes dans la politique en Ouganda s'explique surtout par le fait que les femmes constituent un corps électoral potentiellement influent dans une époque où la libéralisation des systèmes économiques et politiques de l'Afrique limite les capacités des politiciens à se construire une base électorale fondée sur le patronage. L'article suggère que dans un tel contexte les politiciens chercheront de l'appui dans des questions susceptibles à être résolus par le recours à des solutions symboliques. En résumé, cet article insiste sur le fait que l'intervention croissante des femmes dans la vie politique ougandaise est due dans une large mesure au fait que les politiciens en quête de pouvoir sont sensibles aux problèmes soulevés par les féministes parce que, premièrement, les stratégies électorales sont sévèrement limitées par les valeurs politiques et économiques libérales, et deuxièmement les politiciens peuvent s'assurer l'appui des femmes avec des initiatives politiques symboles de moindre coût. L'auteur conclut en examinant brièvement les conséquences de l'influence croissante des femmes dans la vie politique ougandaise, surtout parce que potentiellement l'appui des femmes peut permettre d'aller au-delà des allégeances historiques dans la politique ougandaise qui était fondée sur l'ethnicité, la religion, la région et l'affiliation politique. This essay outlines a realist explanation for an increase in women's participation in formal political processes in Uganda. The essay notes that a variety of factors influence women's participation in formal politics, such as demands for increased participation from women and women's organizations, the influence of the worldwide feminist movement, and Uganda's turbulent political and economic history which has created openings for novel political initiatives. However, the paper's central argument asserts that women's role in formal politics in Uganda is expanding principally because women constitute a potentially influential voting bloc in an era in which the liberalization of African economic and political systems limits politicians' abilities to build electoral support based on patronage. The essay suggests that in this context, politicians will seek to build support around issues that can be addressed with symbolic solutions. In sum, this essay asserts that women's increased role in formal politics in Uganda has been brought about by power-seeking politicians who are sympathetic to feminist issues because (1) electoral strategies are severely limited by liberal political and economic values and (2) politicians can secure support from women with relatively low-cost symbolic political initiatives. The paper concludes with a brief examination of the implications of an expansion of women's influence in formal politics in Uganda, especially concerning the potential for women's political support to "cross-cut" historical Ugandan political allegiances defined by ethnicity, religion, region, and political party affiliation.
Senegal has been at the forefront of democratization in Africa and has consequently increased the representation of political minorities. Despite the growing presence of Senegalese women in elected office, they continue to confront many political obstacles, including exclusion from positions of influence within state and party structures and lack of resources to mobilize support. While these difficulties may be attributed to gendered conceptions of political leadership, democratic reforms have also not altered the patrimonial nature of politics and the structural constraints it imposes on the political participation of women. Women have therefore had marginal access to the hidden public of patronage networks.
The actual and perceived conflicts between customary law and human rights law, especially in issues dealing with gender equality, have remained a major challenge in Africa. Some of these conflicts are further complicated by the varying and contradictory interpretation of some customary laws by the courts. Different approaches have been adopted at different times and in different places to deal with some of these conflicts. One of the most controversial areas of customary law has been the traditional exclusion of women from property inheritance. This paper takes a critical look at how the courts in Botswana have dealt with the issue of the right to inherit the homestead or family home. It examines this issue in the specific context of the recent case of Ramantele v Mmusi in which the Court of Appeal had to consider the customary law rule of male ultimogeniture – which permits only the last-born son to inherit the homestead intestate to the exclusion of other siblings, especially females. It argues that courts need to be more proactive and progressive in their approach to dealing with such issues than they have been in the past in order to recognise the nature and extent of changes that are taking place today. The main lesson that can be drawn from the Botswana case is that if customary law is to survive and develop, more needs to be done to promote research and scholarship in this area and judges also need to take advantage of this research and deal with these customary law disputes with knowledge, understanding and sensitivity.
At the close of the millennium, there is a wave of invigorating air sweeping across the African continent. The refreshing breeze can be felt in the form of women smashing the gendered 'glass ceiling' in a bid to overcome the cultural and structural barriers that impede their political careers. In this short article, I examine the relationship of African women to parliament. In the first section, I look at women's involvement in politics in pre-colonial Africa, and then examine the barriers to women's political activity thrown up by colonialism. This history explains much about women's absence from contemporary African national assemblies. I then focus on one state - Uganda - looking closely at the policy of affirmative action there, and the reality of male bias, prejudice, and sexual harassment that women MPs confront when they manage to enter parliament.
This isn't the first time Uganda's most powerful precolonial monarchy has presided over our pages. Fifty years later, the question of its status in the modern-day state is far from settled. Frederick Golooba-Mutebi calls for a national conversation.
Under what conditions do women participate in executive power in multiethnic societies? Previous research has examined how political institutions, socioeconomic factors, and cultural norms affect the appointment of women as cabinet ministers. However, no study has assessed the extent to which the politicization of ethnicity—a cleavage that shapes political life in many countries—affects women's cabinet appointments. Focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, we argue that women are less likely to become cabinet ministers where incumbents use such appointments to build patronage-based alliances with politicians who act as advocates for ethnic constituencies. Using an original dataset on the composition of cabinets in 34 African countries from 1980 to 2005, we show that women's share of cabinet appointments is significantly lower in countries where leaders must accommodate a larger number of politicized ethnic groups, but it rises with higher levels of democracy and greater representation of women in parliament.
The ‘fast track’ approach for increasing women's representation in politics through the adoption of electoral gender quotas has replaced the ‘incremental approach’ (waiting for cultural, political and socioeconomic developments over time) in recent years. Scholars have disagreed whether increasing women's representation in sub-Saharan Africa where legislatures are weak and executives are strong is meaningless or may even undermine democracy; or increasing women's representation results in significant substantive or symbolic representation effects. This article compares two divergent cases: Botswana, a stable multiparty democracy in southern Africa and Rwanda, an increasingly authoritarian single party dominant state in east Africa. In Botswana, gender quota campaigns have raised awareness but have been unsuccessful in achieving quotas, and women's parliamentary representation is low and continues to fall. In Rwanda, a constitutional gender quota, including reserved seats combined with voluntary party quotas for women have resulted in a majority female lower house of parliament—the only such parliament in the world. These cases suggest that a democratic state is not necessarily more likely to adopt gender quotas or have more women in parliament than a less democratic one and that there are other factors that are more important in determining both. Moreover, in single party dominant systems with limited democracy, like Rwanda, elected women are able to represent women's interests, and campaigns to adopt quotas, even when unsuccessful as in democratic Botswana, can contribute to substantive and symbolic representation effects even with only limited descriptive representation. Thus, the conditions under which and the ways in which women's interests are represented must be understood broadly.
The unequal power relations between men and women in modern political administration have implications for sustainable development and specifically, under representation of women in traditional institution’s decision making process also have effects on traditional governance. Most traditional authorities in Africa and to be specific are made up of both male and female leaders, however a close examination of the traditional political history of the Dagabas of Northern Ghana reveals that women traditional leaders have played less significant roles as compared to their counterparts in the south. This is due to some endemic cultural perception of the position of women in public life. Consequently, sensitization and training programmes to empower these women leaders have been made by governments and civil society groups to include them in the governance system and structures of the country. In spite of these efforts the results are low. The extent to which culture plays a role in determining the effects of such efforts is the focus of this paper. It does so by examining the roles, achievements and challenges of contemporary traditional women leaders in Ghana using Nadowli district as a case study. Primary and secondary data were collected and data analysed qualitatively. The women play educational, political and economic roles using the training skills learnt. However, their challenges reflects on their level of achievements which is very low. This demonstrates that cultural belief systems play a role in the impacts of women traditional leaders’ contributions to nation building.
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In this article we shall examine songs of the Rwenzururu movement of the Bakonzo and Baamba people in Western Uganda. We will be concerned with their different uses, as repositories of history and vehicles of exhortation, and also with their origins in time and space. The main interest in this paper, however, is to find explanations for the simultaneous expression of often strongly contrasted moods, viewpoints and styles in Rwenzururu songs.
The sources of law in most African countries are customary law, the common law and legislation both colonial and post-independence. In a typical African country, the great majority of the people conduct their personal activities in accordance with and subject to customary law. Customary law has great impact in the area of personal law in regard to matters such as marriage, inheritance and traditional authority, and because it developed in an era dominated by patriarchy some of its norms conflict with human rights norms guaranteeing equality between men and women. While recognizing the role of legislation in reform, it is argued that the courts have an important role to play in ensuring that customary law is reformed and developed to ensure that it conforms to human rights norms and contributes to the promotion of equality between men and women. The guiding principle should be that customary law is living law and cannot therefore be static. It must be interpreted to take account of the lived experiences of the people it serves.
There is a dearth of historical work relating specifically to the role that ‘royal’ women played in the Zulu state. This article argues that rather than being peripheral and subordinate in politics, certain amakhosikazi and amakhosazana or ‘royal’ women were key political figures in the Zulu state. Clearly, the women held specific powers and Zulu rule did not centre solely on the male consolidators and administrators, or on a single despotic king and his indunas. It does seem that power was collective. It would be quite narrow to dismiss the significance of these women by arguing that their roles were not related to the structures of power, or that they took on male roles. The Zulu kings needed to incorporate the independent power ‘traditionally’ possessed by amakhosikazi and amakhosazana to be able to rule the new state. On the one hand it aided integration and legitimacy, but on the other hand, Shaka attempted to bypass their power and consolidate his own. At the same time however, they tried to subvert some of the women's power, or perhaps to tap into what may have been considered a characteristic of female authority (symbolic celibacy), by attempting to incorporate and combine in their own person aspects of both male and female power: ‘Dingiswayo and, after him, Shaka each pretended to be afflicted with certain evacuations in the way that women are, though not at regular periods. On these occasions numerous cattle were slaughtered and many people killed.’
Since the restoration of traditional leaders in Uganda in 1993, the Kingdom of Buganda has developed unusually effective institutions, financing mechanisms and policy tools, re-building itself as a quasi-state. The reinforcement of Buganda's empirical statehood provides one of the farthest-reaching examples of the current trend of traditional resurgence in African politics and to some extent supports claims for the participation of traditional structures in contemporary political systems. Yet, the Buganda experiment also highlights the limits of traditional resurgence as a mode of reconfiguration of politics in Africa. First, it is unclear how the kingdom can maintain the momentum of its revival and the allegiance of its subjects in view of its fiscal pressure on the latter and the limited material benefits it provides to them. Already the monarchists are finding it difficult to translate the king's symbolic appeal into actual mobilisation for development, shedding doubts on one of the main justifications for the kingdom's rebirth. Second, Buganda's claims to political participation clash with the competing notion of sovereignty of the post-colonial state. These limits are likely to confront other similar experiments across the continent.
Exploring a range of studies regarding the ‘invention of tradition’, the ‘making of customary law’ and the ‘creation of tribalism’ since the 1980s, this survey article argues that the case for colonial invention has often overstated colonial power and ability to manipulate African institutions to establish hegemony. Rather, tradition was a complex discourse in which people continually reinterpreted the lessons of the past in the context of the present. Colonial power was limited by chiefs' obligation to ensure community well-being to maintain the legitimacy on which colonial authorities depended. And ethnicity reflected longstanding local political, cultural and historical conditions in the changing contexts of colonial rule. None of these institutions were easily fabricated or manipulated, and colonial dependence on them often limited colonial power as much as facilitating it.