Beyond Local Government Reforms: A Case Study of Toro and Kigezi Districts in the Politics of Postcolonial Uganda

Abstract This study contributes to the understanding of ethnicity in local government politics in Uganda. The idea here is to explain how ethnic patriotism was possible under the circumstances in which the colonial mode of governance rigidly recognized only one official identity of the Batoro in Toro. In comparison, the study demonstrates how the response from the colonized in Kigezi set parameters outside the indirect rule politics partly because the colonial mode of governance there was flexible in as far as it recognized the multi-ethnic identity of Kigezi. Therefore, instead of focusing on the idea that the response from the colonized was always derivative, I also explore how it was dialectical. I deploy qualitative social science methodologies to study archives, literature review and oral interviews to examine three main ideas. The first idea is on how the colonial practice of homogenizing Toro served to reproduce ethnicity in politics. The second idea is that the colonial practice in Kigezi, which was flexible and other factors inspired a residence-based mode of governance. The third idea is that the colonial reforms of the 1940s served to strengthen ethnic institutions and the character of ethnic politics at the national level as opposed to democracy.