Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: The Dilemma of Decentralization: A Study of Local Politics in Uganda

权力下放被认为是解决非洲独裁、低效和腐败政府的历史问题的一种方法。 目前对权力下放的强调增加了地方政府和地方精英的重要性。 然而，在一个国家内，地方政府的业绩可能差异很大。 现有的理论往往侧重于对表现差异的社会和文化解释。 然而，当人们试图理解最近的权力下放计划实现既定目标的能力时，这些解释是不够的。 许多走向更大权力下放的国家都是在世界上的一些地区，在那里，庇护和庇护主义仍然是阻碍政治结果的关键因素。 在新世袭制社会中，人们不能假设分权政策得到了完全实施，满足了所有既定目标，并与先前存在的政治统治模式绝缘。 本项目审查权力下放是否改善了地方政府的绩效，它表明，地方政治的性质解释了观察到的行政单位之间的绩效差异。在分析地方政治时，重要的是要承认在非洲和整个发展中世界普遍存在的客户主义或新世袭政治。 在大多数非洲国家，人为划定的国界和外部强加的国家结构说明了国家一级的民族特性和社区感情相对不发达的事实。 因此，公共和私人之间的界限因裙带关系而模糊，因为政治家被迫以物质利益换取政治支持。 同样，新家族主义指的是公私之间的界限被完全打破的情况。 根据Clapham（1982）的观点，公共政治是指政治行为者追求国家目标的情况，而私人政治则描述了个人或团体追求自己的福祉而不是促进公众福利的情况。本项目考察了乌干达行政区样本中权力下放、机构绩效和地方政治之间的关系。 有目的地对地区进行抽样，以反映几个重要特征的多样性，这些特征包括地区、种族、地区分散的日期以及与首都的距离。 在政治被描述为公共政治的地区，地方政治机构预计会表现得更好，但在私人政治占主导地位的地区，情况会更糟。 这种类型的研究需要定性和定量数据的混合，因此，使用了几种数据收集方法。 这些方法包括档案研究，参与观察，精英访谈和调查研究。

Decentralization is considered to be a remedy for historical problems of authoritarian, inefficient, and corrupt government in Africa. The current emphasis on decentralization increases the importance of local governments and local elites. Yet, within a country, the performance of local governments may vary dramatically. Existing theories tend to focus on social and cultural explanations of variation in performance. Yet, these explanations fall short when one attempts to understand the ability of recent decentralization schemes to achieve stated goals. Many of the countries moving toward greater decentralization are found in parts of the world where patronage and clientelism remain crucial in deterring political outcomes. In neo-patrimonial societies, one cannot assume that decentralization policies are implemented completely, meet all stated objectives, and remain insulated from previously existing patterns of political rule. This project examines whether decentralization improves local government performance, and it suggests that the nature of local politics explains observed differences in performance across administrative units. In analyzing local politics, it is important to acknowledge the prevalence of clientelist or neo-patrimonial politics in Africa and throughout the developing world. The artificiality of national boundaries and the external imposition of state structures in most African countries explain the fact that national identities and feelings of community at the national level are relatively undeveloped. Consequently, the line between public and private is blurred by clientelism as politicians are forced to exchange material benefits for political support. Similarly, neo-patrimonialism refers to situations in which the line between public and private is shattered completely. According to Clapham (1982), public politics refer to situations in which political actors pursue the goals of the state, whereas private politics describe instances in which individuals or groups pursue their own well-being rather than promoting the general public welfare. This project examines the relationship among decentralization, institutional performance, and local politics in a sample of Uganda's administrative districts. Districts are sampled purposively to reflect diversity in several important characteristics They include region, ethnicity, date when the district was decentralized, and distance from the capital city. Local political institutions are expected to perform better in districts where politics is described best as public but worse in districts where private politics dominate. This type of research requires a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data and, thus, several data collection methods are used. These methods include archival research, participant observation, elite interviewing, and survey research.