POLITICS, DEMOCRATIZATION AND ACADEMIA IN UGANDA: THE CASE OF MAKERERE UNIVERSITY - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 199026316X ISBN 13: 9781990263163

Publisher: Daraja Press, 2021

Synopsis

As the oldest (and arguably best-known) university in Uganda and the wider eastern and central Africa region, Makerere University looms large in the history of higher education on the continent. Alma mater to presidents, public intellectuals and pundits of all disciplines, Makerere has attracted considerable scholarly and popular attention, both in respect of its prominence and achievements, and well as with regard to its failures and foibles. The proposed book focuses on a particularly understudied aspect of the place of higher education in the African context, i.e. the relationship between a public university of unique historical importance and the contestations over democratization that have taken place both within campus and outside of it. It is built around the late-1980s struggle by the Makerere University Academic Staff Association (MUASA) for improved living conditions against the backdrop of the early programs of structural adjustment and economic reform that the National Resistance Army/Movement (NRA/M) government adopted soon after taking power in 1986. Although seemingly introverted in focus, in many respects the MUASA action represented the earliest forms of political struggle against a regime of governance that promised a great deal, but disappointingly delivered considerably less. The focus on MUASA provides a critical entry-point to a wider debate about the place of organized democratic action by academics in a post-conflict context where the traditional institutions of political and civil society, i.e. political parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have either been severely compromised or discredited, or where they are too weak and inorganic to provide any form of significant counter-juxtaposition to the government in power. By organizing the first strike by academic staff in the sixty-seven (67) year history of the university, for a time MUASA became the focal-point for democratic organizing against a regime that was yet to fully expose its nefarious and anti-democratic colours. The book examines the broader issues concerning the relationship between organized academic action and democratization; the place of the Media in reviewing these struggles; the position of students as a critical component of academe; “big P” and “small p” politics affecting female academics, and finally, the paradoxical role of the School of Law in both aiding and inhibiting the struggle against dictatorship in a country which has enjoyed (or

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About the Author

J. Oloka-Onyango (book editor) is a Professor at the Human Rights & Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Makerere University. Benson Tusasirwe has taught law at Makerere University since 2001, and was previously a lecturer at Uganda Christian University, Mukono and the Law Development Centre, Kampala, Uganda. He has widely published in the areas of constitutionalism, human rights and governance. Ivan Okuda is a Legal Associate at Anguria & Co. Advocates, Managing Editor of the East African Center for Investigative Reporting's online publication, www.voxpopuli.ug, and in 2019 was the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Media Africa Scholar at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Dan Ngabirano is a Lecturer on Law at Makerere University and the Managing Partner at Development Law Associates. He is co-author of Militarism and the Dilemma of Post-Colonial Statehood: The case of Museveni's Uganda (Development Law Publishing, 2017), and was Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs of the Makerere University Students Guild, 2008/2009. Maria Nassali is the Chief Executive Officer of the International Governance Alliance (iGA), and Senior Lecturer at the Makerere University School of Law. She is the author of Beating the Human Rights Drum (PULP, 2015) and editor of The Politics of Putting Asunder (Fountain Publishers, 2017). Sylvia Tamale is a Professor of Law at Makerere University and author of Decolonization and Afro-Feminism (Daraja Press, 2020). Busingye Kabumba is Lecturer on Law at Makerere University and author of the book: Soft law and legitimacy in international law (Development Law Publishing, 2018). His broad areas of interest are power and vulnerability, and the interaction between law and the society(ies) it serves. Frederick W. Jjuuko is Professor and Dean, Faculty of Law, Uganda Martyrs University, formerly Dean of the School of Law at Makerere University, and chairperson MUASA (1988-1992).

Edition details

• Publisher: Daraja Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 199026316X
• ISBN 13: 9781990263163
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 370