Rebuilding public authority in Uganda dualist theory, hybrid social orders and democratic statehood

Conflicted African societies are confronting a crisis of public authority caused by the ethnic, sectarian and class conflicts generated their ongoing transitions from authoritarian to liberal democratic institutional systems. Most have introduced competitive elections which rarely produced stable inclusive political outcomes, discrediting dominant state-building agenda. We draw on classical ‘dualist’ ‘new institutionalist’ theorists explain these failures suggest alternative strategies. They attribute tensions co-existence contradictory illiberal rules cultural systems that interact in dissonant ways hybrid social orders, they enable us develop ‘society-centric historical methodology’ attributes ability or inability achieve statehood regimes build settlements organisational structures reconcile competing demands modern traditional elites subordinate classes. then demonstrate utility this approach using it Uganda’s transition stable, but dualistic colonial state, predatory dictatorship relatively successful autocracy.