The Unsteady State: Uganda, Obote and General Amin

Review of African Political Economy

Volumn 3, Issue 5, 1976, Pages 12-38

  Saul, John S ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 5844407445     PISSN: 03056244     EISSN: 17401720     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03056248108703275     Document Type: Article

References (6)

1. The work of Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband has been of obvious importance to the writing of this paper. Poulantzas ‘most interesting writing on the nature of the petty bourgeoisie is to be found in his Fascism and Dictatorship (London, 1974) and Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London, 1975). Miliband’s article’Poulantzas and the Capitalist State’, New Left Review, 82 (Nov./Dec, 1972) has been particularly helpful.
2. On the post-colonial state, there is Hamza Alavi, ‘The State in Post-Colonial Societies-Pakistan and Bangla Desh’, New Left Review, 74 (July/Aug, 1972) and John S. Saul, ‘The State in Post-Colonial Societies-Tanzania’, The Socialist Register 1974 (London, 1974).
3. Among general works on African politics, Roger Murray’s ‘Second Thoughts on Ghana’, New Left Review, 42 (March/Apr., 1967) is cited on several occasions in the text and remains of seminal importance many years after its publication. Reference is also made to Micheala Von Freyhold, ‘The Workers and the Nizers’ (mimeo, University of Dar es Salaam, 1973), Samuel Decalo, ‘Military Coups and Military Regimes in Africa’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, II, I (1973), and Colin Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, (London, 1975), ch. 6, ‘Neo- Colonial Society’.
4. The works of Mahmood Mamdani are ‘Class Struggles in Uganda’, Review of African Political Economy, 4 (November, 1975) and his book Politics and Class Formation in Uganda (Monthly Review Press, New York, in press). This latter Mamdani was kind enough to let the present author read in manuscript form. Mamdani’s work is closely linked to that of Issa Shiyji, whose own book on Tanzania will soon be published by Monthly Review Press and whose article ‘Peasants and Class Alliances’ appeared in Review of African Political Economy, 3 (May/October, 1975). Mamdani’s writings share many of the strengths-and many of the weaknesses-of those by Shiyji.
5. As indicated in the text, among the more ‘conventional’ writings on Uganda I have found Michael Twaddle, ‘The Amin Coup’, The Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, 10, 2 (July, 1972) and Garth Glentworth and Ian Hancock, ‘Obote and Amin: Change and Continuity in Modern Uganda Politics’, African Affairs, 72, 288 (July, 1973) to be of particular interest. Reference is also made to Colin Leys, Politicians and Policies (Nairobi, 1967) and to D.L. Cohen and J. Parson, ‘The Uganda Peoples Congress Branch and Constituency Elections of 1970’, The Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, II, I (March, 1973). In addition, there is D.A. Low, ‘Uganda Unhinged’, International Affairs 49 2 (April, 1973).
6. The ‘Move to the Left’ itself is critically appraised in Irving Gershenberg, ‘Slouching Towards Socialism: Obote’s Uganda’, African Studies Review, 25 (April, 1972), and not so critically in Michael Lofchie, ‘The Uganda Coup-Class Action by the Military’, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 1 (1972). David Martin’s General Amin (London, 1974) is an excellent journalistic account, light on explanation but very long on the compilation of suggestive facts, especially as regards both the depredations of Amin and the folly of the Obote- Tanzania attempts to overthrow the General.