President Museveni, also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, inspects a parade. PHOTO/FILE
Regardless of the political turbulences it has encountered, the Museveni regime in Uganda is much more entrenched than many of its foes had anticipated. The main question of concern that arises from this situation is: how has the NRM government managed to maintain power for almost four decades? In answering this question, this chapter focuses on three elements that epitomize the instrumental use of the military to guarantee the survival of the Museveni regime in Uganda.
The first is the use of the army to halt attempts by Opposition groups to mobilize dissent and to enforce cohesion within the ruling party.
The second is the discrete cultural domain of military operations and procedures gyrating around familial relations and close family ties.
The third is the ability of President Museveni to out-maneuver and prevent military officers from acquiring sufficient political power to challenge his authority. The regime feels secure because it is firmly protected by the military from its opponents, but also relies on ethnic and family ties to prevent dissent within the army ranks.
Promise of a professional army
When President Museveni came to power in 1986, he promised to establish a professional and nonpartisan army that would be subordinate to a democratic civilian authority. Museveni also promised to curb the military’s political influence, which had led to the ouster of previous regimes.
Charmed by Museveni’s idealistic promises, many Ugandans and the international donor community expressed hope that a professional military institution could help the country overcome the tumult of past years that were marked by sporadic violence and socio-economic collapse.
Museveni’s vision of the army, the donors contended, was impressive, and so it was said Uganda had become a successful case of post-conflict state reconstruction.
However, more than three decades later, Museveni has resisted both internal and external pressure to depoliticize and de-ethnicize the army. He tightly controls the country’s armed forces and employs the military for regime survival projects. As a result, the Ugandan army has maintained a controversial place in the country’s politics because of the way it is used to stifle political dissent.
Instrumental use of the army
Several scholars have shown how the army can be an important tool for the consolidation of autocratic governance. Non-democratic regimes essentially depend on the military to suppress Opposition parties, subdue civil society, and curtail mobilization against the regime.
To survive long in power, autocratic leaders require loyal security organizations that are willing to employ violence against regime opponents. However, autocratic leaders are often careful not to allow the military to acquire sufficient power and autonomy to threaten their rule. The control of armed forces is thus a matter that concerns autocratic leaders, forcing them to employ a range of strategies to regulate, contain, or subdue security organs.
A double-edged sword
However, a powerful military can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, a strong army is necessary for autocratic consolidation through coercion and intimidation. On the other, a powerful military can force the autocratic ruler to make greater concessions to elites in the armed forces, which could raise the possibility of a coup d’état. The fear of a coup leads autocrats to place great emphasis on tight control over their armed forces.
Scholars’ take
Writing about the experience of many post-independent African countries, scholars such as Samuel Decalo, Fjelde Hanne, Volker Krause, and Susumu Suzuki link autocracy with the outbreak of armed conflict on the continent. They have broadly argued that autocratic regimes are more likely to experience civil wars than democracies. Likewise, Daniel Stockemer argues that autocracies have a significantly higher probability of experiencing intrastate warfare.
Many autocratic regimes practise political and social discrimination, which creates tension between citizens, who prefer democracy, versus the regime that feels threatened by the forces of democracy.
As of 2021, at least 12 out of 16 countries in Africa that were facing civil violence have either autocratic or illiberal governments. A large majority of these conflicts were taking place in countries where leaders had come to power through a coup or had changed their constitutions to remove term limits.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been particularly prone to exclusionary politics, coups, and civil wars. Most of the conflicts in post-independent Africa are fundamentally linked to the abuse of power, ethno-political disagreements, and a lack of sufficient checks and balances against executive power. Afrocentric scholars have highlighted the growing cases of groups that are excluded from politics based on religion, ethnicity, gender, class, and ideological beliefs.
Autocratic regimes are inherently unstable because they essentially depend on political coercion, which comes with the risk of coups, civil war, and social discontent. In most African autocracies, those in power exploit their access to power to accumulate ill-gotten wealth through corruption, bribery, and pillage at the expense of groups that are excluded from government. The military has become an important factor in maintaining and reinforcing socio-economic and political inequality as it is used by autocracies to perpetrate violence, intimidate citizens, and enforce acceptance and compliance.
In addition, autocratic regimes practise ethnic exclusion, which further increases the risk of civil war. The use of ethnic exclusion as a governance strategy is driven by the fear that rival ethnic groups could exploit their violent capabilities to overthrow the autocrat from power. He is thus forced to manoeuvre to protect his rule by deterring threats by eliminating his rivals from key positions and replacing them with those with blind loyalty to his rule. When this is carried out along ethnic lines, it increases the risk of coups and civil war.
