Democratizing EU democracy support in Uganda
Embedding democracy aid within local negotiations of justice in Acholiland
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6253301 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nathan Vandeputte (0000-0003-2517-2100, Ghent Insitute for International and European Studies, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 8 |
| Pages | 1397-1415 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Democratization (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1351-0347 • E-ISSN: 1743-890X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13510347.2022.2063276 |
| OpenAlex | W4224214762 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 42 |
This article scrutinizes the way the European Union's (EU) democracy aid corresponds to how "a just society" is negotiated among the Acholi - an ethnic group in Northern Uganda. Through document analysis of EU aid projects, qualitative interviews with project implementers and through secondary analysis of ethnographic literature, this article finds that EU democracy aid in Acholiland - through its emphasis on individual responsibility, entrepreneurship, and its exclusion of elders - selectively aligns with the life worlds of urban youths. Such approach, however, risks further antagonizing Acholi social cohesion. As such, this article points attention to the fact that democracy support will always intervene in a contentious debate on what is perceived as locally just and whom participates in such negotiation. When considering questions of how international democracy support could be improved, it is, therefore, necessary to first of all deconstruct the validity of one's underlying conceptions of what is a just political order, and secondly, to acknowledge that any reconstruction on the grounds of including a plurality of alternatives will always require a political intervention. Such considerations, it is argued, would open up the debate on improving EU democracy support to concerns of how such democracy support itself can become more democratic
Democracy · Economics · European union · Law and economics · Multiculturalism · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Transitional justice · International Development and Aid · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare · Public Administration
Practices of Citizenship in East Africa
The Taming of Democracy Assistance
Deconstructing Development Discourse
Resilience as the new EU foreign policy paradigm
Resilience as embedded neoliberalism
The Government of Chronic Poverty
Governing Chronic Poverty under Inclusive Liberalism
What Politics
Gulu in War … and Peace? The Town as Camp in Northern Uganda
Public authority beyond hybrid governance
Gender–age systems and social change
The normative challenge of interaction
An inherited animus to communal land
Aguu
Democracy through Technocracy? Reflections on Technocratic Assumptions in EU Democracy Promotion Discourse
When revolutionaries grow old
International peacebuilding and local contestations of notions of human rights in Acholi in Northern Uganda
International interventions seen from the ‘Middle’
The Decentring Agenda
Resilience as an Emergent European Project? The EU's Place in the Resilience Turn
Democratizing Democracy
Social struggles in Uganda's Acholiland
Rejuvenating Democracy Promotion
Beyond contestation
Shaking off the neoliberal shackles
Disrupting the autocratization sequence
Scrambling for the promised land
Just another change of guard? Broad-based politics and civil war in Museveni's Uganda
Youth at the crossroads
Death Does Not Rot
In search of chiefly authority in 'post-aid' Acholiland
Land belongs to the people of Uganda
Anger and Bitter Hearts
Generations and Access to Land in Postconflict Northern Uganda
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |