Browsing by Author "Kanyamurwa, John Mary"

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Analysis of the AU–EU Relations Under the AfCFTA Framework in a Neoliberal Context
(Springer, 2024-05) Kanyamurwa, John Mary; Kaddu, Ronald; Karemire, Robert
This chapter contributes to the plethora of neoliberal evidence that addresses itself to the fundamental regional integration political and economic anxieties, specifically focusing on AfCFTA processes. Employing a political economy approach to qualitatively analyze the AU–EU relations, the chapter analyzes these exchange processes in the context of rampant capitalism effectively ushered in Africa from the late 1980s. We demonstrate that the AfCFTA takeoff in 2021 might not quickly bring easy continental trade leap forward mainly due to uneven returns’ distribution dynamics, structural and logistical AfCFTA challenges and the inevitable neoliberal paradoxes set to adversely shape the agreement’s functionality. We, thus, argue that the integration forces within the AfCFTA parties continue to shape the emerging AU–EU relations, nevertheless, with overall progressive indicators to Africa’s industrial revolution. However, these promises are dependent on appropriate policy options undertaken particularly in the next AfCFTA rounds of negotiations. For AfCFTA to become an effective mechanism for promoting productive AU–EU relations, the analysis recommends profound reconstruction of the agreement provisions in the next rounds of trade discourses to ensure a universally profitable trade regime for all partners.
Democratisation Processes Amidst Cultural Diversity in Uganda
(Springer International Publishing, 2022-11) Kyazike, Elizabeth; Kanyamurwa, John Mary; Babalanda, Stanley
Uganda attained independence on the 9th of October 1962 with a diverse cultural spectrum. Yet current analyses hardly interrogate the role of culture in the country’s democratisation processes. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the linkages between cultural diversity and democratisation processes in a heterogeneous society. While this is not a fundamentally unique discourse, the case of Uganda is quite interesting and warrants investigation. Using the cultural theory of democracy, the chapter investigates the various forms of cultural diversity that shape Uganda’s democratic processes, the strategies used to harness democratic aspirations amidst diversity and the implications of the strategies on Uganda’s democratisation drive. To achieve these objectives, an explorative design is utilised. This entails the use of the qualitative approach and techniques for data collection, specifically focusing on documentary review methods. A thematic analysis is utilised to examine the democratisation contradictions within existing debates in the context of culture-based analytics and the cultural framework. The findings of this chapter reveal the cultural diversities that have shaped Uganda’s democratic practices, democratic harnessing strategies and how these aspects have affected the democratisation processes of Uganda. This partly explains why Uganda has one of the biggest parliaments and cabinet despite its size and population. The chapter recommends profound analysis of cultural considerations to guide decision-makers on the direction and pace for democratisation reforms as guided by the nexus between democracy and culture.
Elections and domestic peace in Africa: assessing peace opportunities in Uganda’s 2021 presidential election
(Springer International Publishing, 2022-11) Kanyamurwa, John Mary; Kakuba, Juma Sultan; Kaddu, Ronald; Babalanda, Stanely
Substantial narratives have in recent years been woven around the role of electoral democracy, widely welcoming it as a symbol of Africa’s advancement towards nonviolent power transfer and political stability. Yet, such analyses have often overlooked the unswerving electoral effects on critical peace perspectives in individual African countries. Contributing to the broader discourse on electoral democracy and peaceful democratic upshots, this chapter uses Uganda’s 2021 presidential election, held under COVID-19 pandemic regulations, to assess the domestic peace prospects attendant to electoral democracy as per current studies. Accordingly, adopting exploratory qualitative methods, the paper makes several arguments. First, the introduction of major constitutional reforms which centrally provided for competitive electoral democracy starting from the early 1980s, on which the January 2021 presidential election was based, paved the foundations for domestic peace in the country. Secondly, in line with the study results, we maintain that the 2021 presidential election processes fundamentally undermined domestic peace opportunities. This perspective was particularly reinforced by the experiences of violence leading to unfortunate civilian deaths, abductions and citizen incarcerations following the short-lived arrest of one of the presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in late 2020. Third, the results underscored a perspective on how key electoral and state security institutions detrimentally shaped the 2021 presidential election, inauspiciously contributing to events that further progressively eroded domestic peace. For more enduring and even-handed domestic peace in the country, the paper recommends profound constitutional reforms focusing on checks and balances, more inclusive electoral laws and security reforms aimed at boosting domestic peace in the context of electoral democracy.
Management of wetlands and livelihood opportunities in Kinawataka wetland, Kampala-Uganda
(Elsevier: Environmental Challenges, 2021-01) Kakuba, Sultan Juma; Kanyamurwa, John Mary
Wetlands are globally recognized as ecosystems that provide livelihood opportunities in aptly structured management contexts. Many wetlands, particularly those in urban Uganda are, however, getting degraded through infilling, construction, extraction, agricultural and industrial production despite the existing resource management regime. The purpose of this study was to analyze the gap between wetland management practices and extent of sustainable harnessing of livelihood opportunities. Therefore, this study contributes to an understanding of wetland management functions in relation to sustainable livelihoods. Cross-sectional qualitative and quantitative data were collected to investigate the stated relationships. The study established a positive but insignificant relationship between planning function and sustainable livelihood opportunities. Further, the study found a negative significant relationship between implementation and sustainable production. Finally, findings revealed that there was a connection between the control function and sustainable opportunities. The study recommends inclusive management functions to achieve sustainable wetland livelihood opportunities.
The political economy of globalization and employment returns to youth in Uganda
(Springer International Publishing, 2020-06) Kanyamurwa, John Mary
The political economy of globalization, with its main features such as market-driven technology, trade, and capital flows, continues to alter the structure of labour markets in developing countries, adversely affecting vulnerable population groups such as the youth. Using a cross-sectional survey design in a study undertaken in Uganda, this chapter investigates the political economy of structural changes affecting the youth in the local labour market as a consequence of globalization. The research reveals how economic reforms have undermined the state’s capacity to create decent employment opportunities, with some results suggesting dire consequences ensuing from global competition, which indicate profound inequality, social exclusion, and extreme poverty. Moreover, prime evidence shows the youth are facing new transitional challenges from training establishments to the labour market as employment opportunities in the country continue to dwindle. This situation is further complicated by demographic realities, which currently indicate that the youth in the working age bracket represent slightly over 30% of the country’s total population, putting a spotlight on the state’s current inability to create youth employment in Uganda’s neoliberal policy context. Findings further emphasize globalization dynamics as constituting the authentication for weakened political structures, which are constrained in a situation that requires urgent response to economic distortions evident in the youth unemployment challenge. The study recommends that the state, taking advantage of isolated supportive market indicators, should spearhead reforms to promote sustainable interventions for correcting the skewed youth unemployment challenge in the local labour market.
Politics of natural resource management and accountable systems in the delivery of water services in Uganda
(AJOL: Africa Development., 2017-12-12) Kanyamurwa, John Mary
The political behaviour of public institutions exhibited in the management of critical natural resources influences the nature of service delivery. In particular, the character of such public organizations as regulators of natural resources, like water, impacts not only on what such management bodies do and their functionality, but also on the way they respond to public accountable systems. The latter systems refer to those formal and informal public frameworks that emphasize the need to ensure that water services are delivered effectively, efficiently, satisfactorily and in a sustainable manner. It is mostly the shortfalls in such accountable systems, as is the case in most developing countries’ cities, that prompts analysis of the role of politics in the relevant public organizations. Thus, this article is intended to explore pertinent issues particularly relevant to the interests, rational choices and calculations in the regulation of natural resource management and the modes in which they impact on accountable systems in Uganda. Using a descriptive and correlational research design, data were collected using questionnaires administered to 1,086 respondents from key stakeholders in Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). The findings indicate that political considerations by water managers mostly led to utility maximization of selfinterest rather than serving public interest in terms of decisions which were characterized by minimal participation of lower-level employees and water consumers. The level of adherence to accountable systems was low, suggesting that managers in water provision services were working hard to satisfy their political masters rather than the clients they served. The political considerations that underlined the practices in water resource management significantly watered down the promotion of accountable systems, but also affected the efficiency of the National Water and Sewage Corporation (NWSC). The article concludes that politics in organizations promotes skewed management practices that ultimately undermine accountable systems in the provision of critical resources such as water at the expense of consumers and citizens. Public reforms that enhance the independence of public institutions charged with the provision of vital development resources, which also enhance accountable systems in the public interest, are the most appropriate policy response to this challenge.
Reconstructing Global Security and Peacebuilding in Somalia’s Changing Context
(Springer, 2021-11-23) Kanyamurwa, John Mary
Understood from the backdrop of global security contradictions, the current analysis highlights the Somali decades-old political predicament as a consequence of Cold War global security frameworks and clan-based power struggles in the country. With extensive reliance on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, explicitly document review, the chapter argues that the collapse of the Somalia state authority in 1991 was partly due to extreme global and Africa’s security shifts whose effects we still see today. Results suggest that the foundations of Somalia’s civil war define the profound transformations in the intricate sources of global security challenges in Africa shaped by a changing global order. As a contextually failed state, prudently undermining peacebuilding initiatives in Somalia were forces comprising interclan violence, global military deployments, maritime piracy, and terrorist viciousness, mostly featuring high levels of foreign engineered restructuring of Africa’s security landscape. Nonetheless, the fundamental dynamics that have driven global insecurity and undermined peacebuilding efforts in Somalia have largely been international, regional, and internal. The latter anchored in clan-based vicious struggles for political power. Thus, the A.U. initiatives for global security and peacebuilding are enormously substantial. The A.U.’s efforts through AMISOM constitute apposite interventions to design Africa’s security and peacebuilding networks on the African continent. The chapter recommends a multifaceted global security cooperation regime to reinforce A.U. institutions to contribute to the efforts to reconstruct Africa’s voice in its security policy framework and peacebuilding initiatives.