Democracy and Dictatorship in Uganda: A Politics of Dispensation?

Extant accounts of democracy in the postcolony, according to Sabina Singh, largely rest upon narrow procedural arrangements, neglecting both the historical context of democratic politics as well the state's location within international society. Challenging received thinking, Singh explores the contested nature of the idea of democracy, affording multiple meanings in varied contexts. She grounds her critique of multiparty representation, the ideal-type democratic norm, on both an engaged reading of the literature of democracy in the developing or 'modernizing' Global South as well as reliance on open-ended interviews conducted in 2009 with some key political players in Uganda. The book advances the concept of a 'politics of dispensation' to capture the postcolonial context in which countries such as Uganda - Singh's case study - negotiate international compulsions to democratize. (Mustapha Pasha, Chair in International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Wales, 2014).