Theoretical and epistemological underpinnings of President Museveni’s policies

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OPINION

By Herbert Samuel Baligidde

As a starting point for discussing the general themes and types of explanatory variables that have characterised Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni’s enduring fourty-year domestic and foreign policy legacies.

It is imperative to consider two benchmarks that have dominated current meta-theoretical debate within social science theory and international relations.

The first concerns the ontological foundations of social systems, that is, the type of issues exemplified by the interesting claim, reputedly made by the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, that “there is no such a thing as a society” to which domestic and foreign policy should respond but “only individuals” of individual action; or from the slowly evolving rules of the self-reproducing structure.

It essentially revolves around the question of where the dynamic foundations of socio-economic transformation systems to which the latter-day Museveni has devoted so much of his leadership in recent years are located.

At the ripe age of eighty-one years of age he has demonstrated extraordinary stamina by traversing the length and width of the country to locate and verify them. This dynamism, either has its origin in the effects intended or not, of individual action; or from the concretisation of the quickly evolving rules of a self-reproducing and rebranding revolutionary realist [for deeper insight into how this writer epistemologically came to this conclusion, see Guzzini, 1998:197].

This classic distinction in ‘Social Theory’ is often expressed in terms of the dichotomy between ‘individualism’ and ‘holism’, the former holding that social scientific explanations, also applicable to economic transformation variables, should be reducible to the basic properties of interactions of the independently existing individuals in the socio-ecosystems, while holism represents Wendt’s (1999:26) idea that the effects of social structures cannot be reduced to independently existing agents and their interactions.

Should this ontological polarity between individualism and holism be distinguished from the epistemological issues of whether social agency ought to be viewed through objectivistic or interpretative lenses?

Two choices may be used to focus on human agents and their actions either from the external or internal policy environments; corresponding to the classical Weberian distinction between explaining, understanding and internalizing concepts.

These two approaches reveal two different types of situations about domestic and foreign policies vis-à-vis international relations, each with its own view of human nature, and similar but not the same range of appropriate theories (Hollis and Smith, 1990).

The choice is thus between an approach that models itself on the natural sciences, and one that hinges on the independent existence of a socio-economic realm constituted by social rules, economic principles and intersubjective meanings.

Whereas the former is based on ‘naturalistic’ epistemology self-consciously replicated on that of the social sciences, the latter and epistemological notion of explaining, is based on Max Weber’s claim that “the science of society attempts the interpretative understanding of socio action” (Hollis and Smith:72). This means that action must always be understood from within [for our purposes, that is, before making a socio-economic decision an actor or decision-maker must first internalize all the aspects and consequences of the decision he or she is about to make.

Museveni, a Political Science graduate, who during his exile in neighbouring Tanzania reportedly had a reasonably lengthy stint as a lecturer of Political Economy at a Cooperatives Management College in Tanzania, whenever he was not busy mentoring and struggling to keep his youthful FRONASA disciples together, while preparing them for battle to remove Uganda’s military dictator General Idi Amin Dada from power.

Quite apart from being well-versed in the practical aspects of guerrilla warfare, by his own account in his book Sowing the Mustard Seed, and verified by the accounts of several of his compatriots, having been trained by Mozambique’s FRELIMO, as well as allegedly attending conventional military science tactics and skills reportedly picked up from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea during the Kim IL Sung epoch, had and still has a robust theoretical academic and practical understanding of the milito-political underpinnings of socio-economic issues, challenges and problems.

Nothing ever becomes real until it is experienced; throughout his 81 years of age a monument he recently celebrated with hundreds of “hustlers” instead of and grassroot supporters at the historical Independence grounds at Kololo instead of hosting the usual and expected Cocktail replete with all the trappings of high society at State House to entertain the usual Religious Dignitaries, VIPs and Foreign Diplomats at State House. He has experienced uncountable leadership and governance moments.

Considering the previously perennial problems of Uganda’s historiography and because there is anger in reckless change Museveni is the one most capable of managing the transition when the country eventually gets close to crossing the bridge.

It would be unwise to change horses when crossing a river. For now, consider the reality that Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants like food, good health, wealth, shelter and security. The citizens of a country and other residents have a right that their wants be provided for by this wisdom.

If it is these the electorate craves for, then His Excellency President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni who has offered himself as the one with the capacity to continue providing them is the most eligible for doing so. For a number of reasons, empirical research shows that he is the best-placed to provide them. If it is reorganization, a new deal, and change the electorate is seeking my opinion is that Museveni is the best choice.

Besides, he seemingly has never forgotten the college blackboard, so to speak. In the early stages of his leadership, he often engaged his audiences in lectures of opportunity using flip sheets to explain various phenomena in the socio-economic domains as well as their relevant ecosystems.

He still uses what he calls lectures of opportunity in a blended form to his various audiences using fully illustrated PowerPoint slides.

Suffice to reiterate the fact that action must always be understood from within, and this in a double sense means that he personally researches many aspects of the topics of his engagements with both his public and limited attendance official ones.

President Museveni had in 1987 been in power for one year and this writer had risen to a somewhat higher rank which enabled me to accompany the Minister of Foreign Affairs Amb. Ibrahim Mukiibi, or my Head of Department who I sometimes represented at functions with a foreign affairs protocol dimension held at State House Entebbe where courtesy visits by high level delegations including Heads of State and Government from the African region when he was on leave or had travelled abroad on official duties.  

I recall that on more than one of such occasions, we always found His Excellency the President wide awake! I also recall an instance when the Angolan Revolutionary Leader Sam Nujoma who had been attending an OAU meeting in Addis Ababa paid a visit to him to update him on the progress of the Namibian struggle for independence.

During the expected diplomatic exchange of niceties jokingly asked him how he managed to be awake at such early and unfriendly hours [6:00am], whereupon he replied that he had in fact woken up at 3:00am to do some reading, not to prepare for the meeting, but as a routine practice he had adopted many years before! Neither the Chief of Intelligence at the time Maj Gen. Jim Muhwezi nor myself last long in the meeting of the two revolutionaries; Foreign Minister Ibrahim Mukiibi did.

President Museveni asked Ambassador Mukiibi who I was and Ambassador Mukiibi told him I was a Foreign Service Officer sent by the Ministry to write the minutes of the meeting for follow-up action. Smiling, he said the next phase of the meeting was for revolutionaries not civil servants and politely asked me to wait in the lounge and enjoy biscuits and tea.

I was shocked to find Gen. Muhwezi cooling it off there and I asked him why he was not in the meeting of revolutionaries since unlike me, he was one of them. He said he too had earlier been dismissed from the meeting. We were not strangers to each other. We reminisced on that moment buried in the past while enjoying biscuits and State House tea and we were able to start a conversation. I had met him in Khartoum earlier when I was still Chargé d’Affairés a.i. there in 1986 shortly after the NRA took over power. He carried a taken a Special Message from President Museveni to the Sudanese Military Head of State Lt-Gen. Suwar Dahab. I had accompanied him to deliver it and we had established some rapport with each other.

Recalling how quickly we had fixed an appointment for him with the Suwar Dahab [RIP]. He jokingly referred to me as ‘Sudanese’, a distinct anomaly because I was neither Sudanese nor the Sudanese to Uganda but a former Head of Chancery/Charge d’Affairés ad interim at the Uganda Embassy in Khartoum after Ambassador Francis Joseph Kasirye [RIP] was recalled for appointment on promotion to the higher rank of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign.

Since epistemology is the study of theory of the nature and grounds of knowledge with reference to its limits and validity answering the question ‘how do we come to know what we know’?], it is clear that the participatory observation instrument and approach is also useful in verifying or eliciting the epistemological benchmarks of his revolutionary methods of work which have radically shifted from the left to the centre. Listening to narratives and verifying their validity is increasingly becoming embedded in mixed-methodologies of research and they are being utilized here to understand Museveni’s policies. 

I know two or three people in academia who have earned robust PhD’s after going to live with local communities in Karamoja and Northern Sub-regions and engaging in narrative- based research, analyzing the collected data, verifying its validity, conceptualizing the findings in their historical and cultural contextual conflicts, writing and successfully defending their theses.

President Museveni seems to have borrowed a leaf from the current wisdom of the Management Leadership Sciences, that is, not to escalate alleged commitment to the leftist ideas which he embraced in his youthful years during which political intellectualism was measured by how much one knew about Leninist-Marxism and understood the dynamics of class struggle, dialectical and historical materialism and was able to explain complex concepts such as the negation of the negation in French!

As a Freshman at Makerere University in July 1971, this writer was temporarily housed in New Hall which was adjacent to Northcote Hall. Ndugu Ruhakana Rugunda, a longtime ideological associate of Yoweri Museveni in FRONASA and the wider Revolutionary Youth Movement at that time, was the Student Hall Chairman of the former. Museveni was at Dar es Salaam University from where he reportedly organized a group of other students for frays into the bushes of Mozambique for guerrilla training under FRELIMO.

The Dining Hall was always ‘graced’ or ‘littered’ [whichever ideological side one belonged to] with Table Literature containing revolutionary Marxist-Socialist leaning messages attributed to the revolutionaries of the time. The pamphlets allegedly found their way to the Dining Tables of Northcote, New Hall and University Halls, courtesy of “Comrade Museveni’s” revolutionary contacts at the University. They had made little effort to conceal their connections because it was kind of prestigious among the elite in those days to be associated with revolutionary struggles in Africa.

This exposed them to the risk of identification by Amin’s sarcastically-named State Research Bureau (SRB) and “go for them” but some succeeded, as Political Science Professor Ali Ahmed Mazrui put it, “to vote with their feet” [euphemism for running into exile]. Never mind though, that he himself did likewise after allegedly being tipped off that he was on Amin’s SRB’s hit list. Why? Besides reportedly being suspected by Amin of being a CIA Agent, the pamphlets criticized his ‘fascist Junta’. The language used in the said table literature was overly Marxist-Leninist.

President Museveni has himself repeatedly repeatedly referred to his activities in the revolutionary struggles of the 1960s and 1970s.  What makes him different and important is his proven ability not to escalate commitment, ‘without much ado about nothing’, to some of the ideologies that benchmarked the Student Movements of his youthful years, as well as his own post-liberation and latter-day public policies after they have been proved wrong or lost their relevance in this era.

The rationalization exercise of ministries and public corporations which he initiated is proof of his willingness to review the performance of existing and proposed public policies and the philosophies that underpinned them.  Kiwanuka (2014:190) describes Museveni thus: “Despite his denials [about his alleged former Marxist Socialist leanings], he will go down in history as one of the most prominent Marxists who turned capitalist during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries”.

Although he used Marxist theories to re-educate his guerrillas who after a five-year war of liberation in the Luweero Triangle and even took some of them to Mozambique and the Marxist FRELIMO trained them, early in his presidency when many people had no idea that doctrinaire communism would go out of fashion and the communist system would collapse, Museveni has seemingly embraced capitalism so much that he aspired to turn Uganda into an economic tiger.

Instead of following in the footsteps of revolutionary movements that had captured power and instituted totalitarian regimes, he re-introduced democracy which had been under serious attack under the previous regimes. The West that had feared he would introduce Communist-type democratic centralism were impressed and started courting him. A decade after the NRA/NRM captured power democratic institutions were restored prompting the West to refer to Uganda as a beacon of democracy in Africa.

The NRM has steadfastly strove to remove emerging challenges undermining its task of perfecting democracy. Actually, he had during his visits to Europe to mobilize support denied having ever been a communist. According to veteran journalist and diplomat Jenkins ‘Zaakeka’ Kiwanuka, author of Son of a Rat Catcher and a senior citizen of this country who a cabinet minister once described as “someone who was known by everybody who was a somebody”, during the War of Liberation in the early 1980s, while in Europe mobilizing support for his NRA guerrilla outfit Yoweri Museveni was invited to address a meeting of some 200 Ugandans, Rwandans, other interested parties such as refugees and immigrants living in Germany and neighbouring European countries in the then Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn.  

As First Secretary at the Uganda Embassy which at that time was located at Bonn, Kiwanuka attended the meeting ex-officio. He did not just take exception at being labelled a communist, he furiously denied that he had ever been one (Kiwanuka, 2014:188-192).

Asked whether being a “self-confessed Marxist” he would introduce socialist policies, “In a voice cracking with anger, Museveni denied ever being a Marxist”, Kiwanuka writes. Mr. Museveni reportedly loudly declared that he had not come to the meeting to be insulted and threatened to leave but was calmed by his wife Janet Kataha Museveni, Dr Ruhakana Rugunda and Mrs Gertrude Njuba all of whom were in his entourage.

The meeting was reportedly also attended by Ibrahim Mukiibi who became the first Minister of Foreign Affairs in the post liberation war Government of the NRM. He was one of the ambassadorial appointees to Khartoum who declined Obote’s appointments I alluded to earlier. Kiwanuka had been stationed at the Uganda Embassy at Copenhagen-Denmark and served as First Secretary and attending such meetings/functions held by Ugandans in the country of his ambassador’s accreditation was therefore part of his routine schedule of duties. His narratives are verifiable and have indeed been verified by others who were at the Embassy and at that particular event.

Talk of loyal cadres, Amb. Mukiibi is incontestably one of them. I have in recent times had the privilege of attending the workshops and a few Board meetings of a Uganda-based private-think tank on foreign policy and can testify that he still exudes the qualities of a fiery and unyielding vintage NRM ideologue when he contributes to workshops debates but adopts the calculative diplo-bureaucratic calmness of the Foreign Minister he was!

Yet, at the Bonn meeting where Mr. Museveni was as Kiwanuka put it, “challenged to state where he stood ideologically”, in a voice Kiwanuka observes was filled with emotion, Mukiibi reportedly opened up with a tirade under which he condemned and proclaimed the impeding liquidation of as he put it, “those rotten regimes that have ruined our country and caused our people so much misery”, he reportedly roared.

With no attempt to hide the characteristic sarcasm that made his Op-eds with the popular pen-name ‘Zaakeka’ so scintillating and enjoyable Kiwanuka, the author of the Son of a Ratcatcher, impugns that Museveni, who was on a mission to mobilize support for the NRA/NRM took note and appointed Ambassador Ibrahim Mukiibi to the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs in his first Cabinet after as was widely expected Museveni’s guerrilla outfit successfully captured power in January 1986. Never mind that Jenkins Noah ‘Zaakeka’ Kiwanuka was himself rewarded with the Independence Medal on one of Heroes’ Day celebrations by President Museveni.

The question as to whether Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, an accomplished NRA guerrilla leader and undisputed enduring Pan-Africanist, had been Marxist-socialist remains intriguing. But once in power his economic policies dubbed Musevenomics when chronologically analyzed, reveal a slow departure from leftist rhetoric; through the terrain of prudent policies underpinned by mixed-economy pragmatism which in the 1990s were dictated by realities of the need to rescue the country from economic abyss and levitating towards total collapse due to the incompetence and lack of vision which characterized political governance during the past regimes; to the present epoch of a carefully planned shift to a socio-economic transformation benchmarked by affirmative foreign investment, industrialization, diversification of both local and national income generating activities focused on value-addition and focusing on perfecting the tools of trade and economic diplomacy; all written in Musevenomics characteristics.

I have no hesitation in adding that in an extraordinary demonstration of altruistic sacrifice and personal risk to his life Museveni passes as the leader who stopped the rot and petulance Mukiibi talked about. He is therefore now, also the one with the capacity to prevent the re-emergence of the terrifying times of a past Mukiibi alluded to so emotionally.

This writer who has the distinct privilege and honour to serve as a Board Member of UCFR, observes that unlike the forgiving Museveni who has invited his erstwhile enemies to join him in continuing the task of transforming the country, when contributing to discussion Mukiibi gets revved-up with anger at “those rotten regimes”, is still audibly noticeable but I have known him and he has known me for an incredibly long time; behind the fiery rhetoric there is a human being who despite his terrifying memories of the past is said to be an excellent cadre of the NRM and a true patriot.

The individualistic answer to the ontological question of Museveni’s legacy as a player in the diplomatic and foreign policy arena reduces epistemological issues to a choice between either treating foreign policy actors of his genre from the ‘outside’ as interpretative or reflexive actors in an increasingly intersubjective world of searching for the ‘meanings’ of correlations of different inter-connexions.

In either case, an individual state actor as a major policy decision making unit in serious diplomatic or foreign policy issues with security dimensions, is viewed as the primary source of Uganda’s foreign policy. Hence, all conceptions of the link between foreign policy and domestic public policy ‘vectors or change agents on the one hand, and the decision-making processes as well structures on the other hand, are deemed ultimately reduced to explanations in terms of individual action.

Explanations proceeding from the holistic approaches diplomatic and foreign policy actions, either as a function of structural determination, or with reference to processes of political mobilization and socialization to social-political order treat diplomatic and foreign policy action either as a function of structural determination, or with reference to processes of political socialization broadly defined. In both instances the relationship between foreign policy actors and socio-political structures is presented in terms of some form of structural not ideological determination whereby individual action may be viewed as a function of a pre-established socio-economic order.

Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Donald Trump therefore seem to see themselves as the drivers of socio-economic transformation of their respective countries. Both are, if you like, the latter-day messiahs of their countries but in different ways; Trump nostalgically seeking to ‘drive’ his country back to the past geopolitically great days when the US was arguably the hegemonic superpower which determined international relations, and Museveni seeking to ‘drive’ Uganda to a new higher socio-economic status.

In contemporary times aggressive neorealism has been pre-eminently represented by some analysts who argue that whereas a new kind of Cold War underpinned by the geopolitical dynamics of multipolarity, rapidly growing military balance in the sophistication and quantity of not just nuclear weapons and new futuristic weapons of mass destruction  and their delivery systems but spectacular advancement in the futuristic pilotless vehicles which the First UN Special Session on Disarmament and at least three SALTs talked about, as peace in Europe that had been kept for over 45 years before President Putin contrived the ”special  operation” disappears.

But as conventional wisdom indicate, its unfortunate demise has already caused deleterious effects on not just the foreign policies of all the Permanent members of the UN Security Council but also the new members of the ‘Nuke Club’ [North Korea, India, Pakistan and through proxy links the USA, Israel and South Korea], but also their domestic public policies.

This is bound to have unintended consequences on the policies of the lesser powers and other countries in the global South leading to unprecedented entropy everywhere in the world. Whatever initially caused the ‘Butterfly effects’ in Ukraine, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, the flapping of its wings will be felt wide and afar.

This pessimistic scenario is drawn from the application of the neo-realist tenets of the present international situation, especially the view that insofar as the multi-super powers and their proxies continue to foster conflict and aggression, rational states may be compelled to pursue offensive strategies too in search of their own security.

That realistic philosophy may have in the past underpinned President Museveni’s pragmatic strategy of adopting a militarily defensive posture towards Uganda’s neighbours while at the same time if not advocating integration, then simultaneous fast-tracking Pan-Africanism and East African Integration.

‘Defensive Neorealists’, do not seem to ascribe to the pessimistic and essentially Hobbesian view of the so-called International System. They argue instead that although systemic factors do not have causal effects on state behaviour because it is claim that not all state actions can always be accounted for or explained to the general Public.

Thomas Hobbes was the 17^th Century thinker who sought to apply the new methods of Science and the Greek rigour of logic to Sociology. In his 1660 Classical Philosophical work Leviathan he described the nature of power and promoted the notion of a ‘Commonwealth’ [a union of nations that agree to integrate] as an effective society. He noted that instrumental power had the sole purpose of acquiring more power of a different kind. This included wealth, reputation and influential friends.

During all his election campaigns the incumbent, President Museveni has repeatedly declared that he seeks power as an instrument to bring about fundamental changes in the country he has led for 40 years and wants to be given another term to enable him to complete the socio-economic policies he has over the decades initiated.

After doing some robust research a former colleague at Uganda Martyrs University East African School of Diplomacy, Governance and International Studies (EASDGIS) and a reputable expert in ‘Diplomatic History’ one Prof. Godfrey Okoth (2007:128) maintains that in the 1990s Uganda [under Museveni] emerged as a Model for US and IMF/World Bank policies in Africa. Two decades later the statistics of the same institutions speak of a great leap forward in terms of development. Museveni continues to articulate and defend those policies which have taken Uganda close to attaining Middle-Income status! His strategic support of US post-Cold War policies in Africa coupled with a pro-Western foreign policy stance was rewarded generously by the US and its Allies.

An astute diplomat, a pragmatic politician and strategist who knows how not to succumb to the possible negative effects of escalation of commitment to seemingly obsolete ideologies, he has in the last decade carefully shifted towards an internationalist stance advocating for the multilateralism touted by and promoted by the Chinese Leader Xi Ping under the auspices of the BRICS Group consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa; and expanding his circle of development partners to Asia by attracting investors from the People’s Republic of China, India, Japan, Turky, Iran, South Africa, and prominent global development foundations such as the one under His Highness the Aga Khan’s Shia Ismailia Imamat, among others, while at the same time also prudently maintaining his old socio-economic development links and friends in the West; all in the name of transforming the country he and his compatriots liberated 40 years ago.

As a leader, it takes a lot of ideological commitment and a lot of mature vision to achieve such a feat. Never mind that Hobbes contended that the value of a man is, all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the correct [emphasis mine] use of his power.

Hobbes thus saw the quest for power as the quest for command over the power of others. If one can get others to use their power on behalf of his purpose like Museveni has over the decades successfully done, then he can add their power to his arsenal. This simply means that the US bought the compliance of President Museveni in participating in peace keeping missions in the Great Lakes region and contributing towards assisting the US in fighting international terrorism.

Expansion in globalization which has mainly been caused by increased interconnectivity and interdependence across the world thereby causing a significant shift in focus on the criteria of what determines the major international variables of geopolitical ‘power calculus’. The emergence of new States following the break-up of the USSR in 1991, increased the number of State actors, further entropizing the dynamics of International diplomatic interaction.

The new States became radically attached to their new borderlines and started to embrace Western ideas about Democracy thus further antagonizing the Kremlin’s hardliners. Whereas the Communist/Socialist Camp lost several States which did not only take the international capitalist path but also committed the geopolitical blasphemy of expressing the desire to join Russia’s military nemesis: NATO; the West gained. The end of the ideologically based Cold War was followed by a shift from the US-led “Unipolar” so-called New World Order; a transformation that started three decades steadily began changing.

This time, towards a new form of multifaceted power balancing structure which was in sharp contrast to the traditional pattern of the international power balancing calculus; rendering both bipolarity and unipolarity obsolete. When the predominant position of the US in the new multipolar World Order continued to decline, prompting Donald Trump to campaign for re-election to a new term using a slogan popular to Americans: “Make America Great Again”. He won. This writer partly concurs with the view that the entropy witnessed in Europe and the Middle East is attributed to his return to the White House, by some analysts.

This reminds me of one weekend tutorial essay question: “Why does the world hate America?”, that was given to our 1972/73 sophomore class at Makerere University Kampala. Pre-tutorial research in the periodicals section in the basement of the Main University Library led to the discovery of the American Political Science Journal article from which the professor of International Relations lifted the question. The author of the article answered himself: “We are too great…for American unpopularity not to be common”! Apart from assumptions drawn from history, there are other structurally-oriented approaches to analyzing foreign policy and its domestic political linkages.

For example, back at home in Uganda, the most captivating domestic and foreign policies of Mr Museveni as President, but there is no doubt that contemporary forms of realism are the most relevant. It is also the case that despite the various criticism directed at neorealism as a consequence of its inability either to predict or explain the end of the Cold War on the one hand or why it has been succeeded by a new kind of conflict by proxy which is more volatile and based on geopolitics rather than ideology by the same powers that orchestrated the Cold War, neorealism is very much still alive and kicking.

It continues not only to contribute to the contemporary analysis of the foreign and domestic policies of Nation States within the International System but also to make the analysis of the policies of individual national leaders by equal measure both in the already developed and still developing parts of the world easy. Instead of emphasizing the role played by the distribution of power in the International System, Scholars such as Stephen Walt and Charles Glaser thus instead suggested focusing on understanding the importance of the source, level and direction of security or military threats, defined in terms of technological factors, geographic proximity, offensive capabilities and perceived or declared intentions (Glazer, 1995; Walt, 1995; Rose, 1998: 146).

This means that States sch as the UK and for good measure the Nation-State called Uganda which it created then fostered as a Protectorate, for yet to be fully understood reasons tend to pursue security in rational manner and can generally afford to be relatively relaxed except in rare instances such as when a neighbour allows subversive elements to stage attacks from that neighbouring State’s territory.

As a member of the IGAD High Level Mediation Roster some of, not all, the facts and information on the dynamics of resolving Conflict in the IGAD Region, the African Continent and elsewhere, this writer agrees with the hypothesis suggesting that security can generally be achieved by balancing threats conceived by the belligerents in a timely manner to prevent most forms of conflict from occurring or escalating after they have actually already occurred.

Foreign Policy activity, Rose (op cit) explains, “is the record of rational States reacting properly to clear systemic incentives going into conflict only in such circumstances as when the security dilemma is heightened to fever pitch” (Rose, 1998:150; Glaser, 1995; Snyder, 1991; Walt, 1995; Zakaria, 1995:475-481). The argument that Neoclassical Realists should be distinguished from both the ‘Offensive’ and ‘Defensive’ Neorealists is valid. 

However, against the backdrop of a war that started as Putin’s so-called “special operation”, with due respect, the intransigent behaviour of Presidents Putin, Trump and Zelensky, under the seemingly lukewarm international and regional pressure and considering the real risk of escalation into a wider conflict sparking-off World War III, now seems to be an exercise in academic gymnastics if not academic language superlative and therefore effectively perforates it.

The arguments made by Russia on the one hand seem to be underpinned by neoclassical geopolitical considerations, while those used to counter them have a Neorealist thread. Since objectivity is usually the first casualty of war attempting to conceptualize both simultaneously, may for now when Russia determination not to burg is displaying be a futile exercise.

But Trump and Putin seems to share with the Neorealists the view that a country’s foreign policy is prima fronte formed by its geopolitical position in the international system and in particular by its relative material power capabilities; classical roots of the approach being firmly entrenched in the frontline.

In fact, as Rose (1998:146) might now argue, the impact of systemic factors on a given country’s foreign policy are somewhat indirect and more complex than the Neorealists may assume, since such factors as are hindering efforts for ending the war in Ukraine, can be of decisive impact only through badly camouflaged intervening variables by all.

This view would seem to be contrary to the whole tenor of offensive neorealism yet the Neoclassical Realists also fault Defensive Neorealists, such as Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine sometimes appear to be, mainly because of the claim that the systemic argument fails to explain much of the actual foreign policy behaviour, and hence need to be augmented by introduction of unit-level variables such as the need for the survival of the State (Schweller, 1996: 114-15; Zakaria, 1995).

On the other hand, although Neoliberal Institutionalism which is not touted as an appropriate approach to analyzing foreign and domestic political policies, usually also goes under the name of Neoliberal Institutionalism   and is as relevant to the study and analysis of foreign policy in particular, as are Realism and Neorealism in their various multiple configurations. Insofar as this school of thought is flagged as an alternative to Realism, it also entails an alternative approach to foreign policy analysis (Baldwin, 1993).

‘Neoliberal Institutionalism’ is a structural, systemic and ‘top-down’ view for some of the same reasons that Realism constitutes. According to Baldwin (1993:8-14 and Greico, 1993) it is assumed that States tend to be egoistic value maximizers; that the International System is essentially anarchic. It may also be for the same reason that Moravesik (1997: 537) claimed that “Neoliberal Institutionalism is a misnomer”, insofar as it seems to constitute another variant of Realism.

The distinctiveness about the neoliberal institutionalist approach to foreign policy and its domestic political linkage, is that whereas both the Realists of the Museveni genre and Neoliberals of the Zelensky strain, view foreign policy-making as a process of constrained choice by the purposive strategies of the State, the latter is understood as a constraint not primarily in terms of the configurations of the power capabilities facing policy-makers, but in terms o anarchic chaotic systems which, while it fosters uncertainty and therefore is of security concern, can nevertheless be positively affected by institutional provision of information and common rules in the form of functional governance regimens.

International cooperation even under anarchy as seems to be the case today is disheartening, but it is possible in the pursuit of given State policy preferences and overarching national strategic priorities (Oye, 1985). Certain specific feature and aspects of International and Domestic Politics can be explained away in terms of State-centric outcomes in the form of cooperative foreign policies coupled with a State’s domestic political policies.

According to the organizational process approach to foreign policy analysis though, both Realism and Neoliberal Institutionalism are structural approaches of a systemic kind. Policy analysis can be done structurally at a lower level of analysis whereby the structural factors driving policy is not external but internal to the State. As argued by Hollis and Smith (Hollis and Smith, 1990: 8-9, 196-202), a top-down approach on the sub-systemic level would of necessity then focus on the causal relationships between the State and its Agencies; how the latter conforms to the demands of the former or between Agencies and individual State Actors.

At this level a structural view would imply that individual decision=makers may not act independently but generally in conformity with the dictates of their employers. For example, the Army Representatives as Legislators in Parliament while discussing foreign and especially domestic policy issues are guided by the assumed preferences or direct instructions of the Head of State who also doubles as their Commander-in-Chief.

Power is not personal but bureaucratic insofar as the actors’ activities represent national not individual interests. Mile’s Law which encapsulates the bureaucratic link between individual actors and their organizational source o reassurance depends on where or on which side of the Speaker’s Table the MP sits, doesn’t it?

Although theorized on the basis of the epistemological underpinnings of how governments actually work, decision-making in political situations has always received criticism both with reference to conceptual confusion and poor empirical performance (Bernstein, 2000; Rhodes, 1994; Welch, 1998). The liberal approach though, is rooted in the academic discourses of the early European scholars as well as in research on the role of domestic structures in foreign policy analysis and the role its political domestic linkages play.

The applicability of recent organizational theory (March and Olsen, 1998) takes us to the distinction between the logic of ‘consequences’, defining the type of action appropriate within both realist and neoliberal contexts or situations.

The distinction between the logic of consequences when they do not behave ‘professionally’ or seem to take sides that flout their organizational preferences appropriate within contestable realist and neoliberal thinking and the logic of appropriateness, which Allison and Zelikow (1999), have claimed in their substantial updating of the organizational model, is central to effective organizational process approach to decision-making (Allison and Zelikow, 1998:927). Earlier pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky (1979). 

The approach maintained that predominant leader decision-makers, such as President Museveni at times when there is an ideological vacuum to guide action or policy, identify their choices not in terms of maximizing their own expected utility as assumed albeit incorrectly in some rational choice models but rather with regard to the prudence of maintaining the status quo in the national interest, of which they are risk-averse with respect to gains, and risk-acceptant with respect to losses (Farkas, 1996:1996; Kahler, 1998; McDermott, 1998).

While it is true that there are things that have somehow gone wrong, in an election year, references to imagined “authoritarian changes and levitation towards dictatorship” or misperceptions of a shift towards authoritarianism in Uganda despite bureaucratic politics the country having one of the most elaborate democratic institutional structures and processes from the top echelons of governance to the grassroots in Africa, reek of political malice.

Analyzing and assessing competence in the domestic policy domains the simplest approach is to use the leadership and general competency framework developed by UNI’s e-Learning Works UK (2005) which highlights the ideal tenets of leadership and has been used for the following general observations details of which have been published and gazetted by the Government and Private Media outlets. Herein are 7 columns containing the key variously verified purposively modified performance actions for which President Museveni is renowned. On a hypothetical horizontal axis are the following which for those endowed with mathematical skills can be plotted on a mathematical graph:

Column (1) Focus on the Future Column (2) Change and Improve Column (3) Deliver for Travellers and Stakeholders Column (4) Think and Decide Column (5) Focus on Commercial Success Column (6) Deliver High Performance Column (7) Grow through Learning. Under the above categories President Museveni has done the following are included from top to bottom:

Category [1] demonstrated extra-ordinary capacity and ability to develop a challenging vision of the future, explored future possibilities for government business and the private sector, ensured that prioritized work plans are clearly aligned to the countries strategic goals, objectives and has worked with others in developing options for the present and future.

Category [2] he has initiated work and economically rational ideas to improve the business sector, looked for innovative solutions to identified needs,

[3] championed stakeholder needs, explored ways of improving delivery to stakeholders, agreed to implement clear and realistic expectations with stakeholders, encouraged others to focus on delivery to stakeholders,

[4] he has taken calculated risks, rationally evaluated a wide range of options and information when making decisions, often clearly articulated why certain decisions have been made the way they have, explored and responded to the objective views of others,

[5] set challenging commercial and socio-economic economic transformation and development targets, seek out and evaluated new opportunities to improve profitability through value addition to both agricultural and industrial products for export and local consumption, articulated a clear commercial and export trade context, support others in achieving their targets,

[6] set plausible stretch goals, continually identified ways of improving performance in the public and private sectors as well as the country’s armed forces, provided a generally compelling purpose and direction for al sectors, worked with others to deliver the best possible results,

[7] provided and encouraged others to give constructive challenges and feedback, linked personal development to business and commercial objectives, helped others to learn many things about creating personal wealth and contributing to building a strong national economic base for steering the country towards achieving middle income status through numerous lecturettes of opportunity.

On the vertical axis starting from the top the structure is as follows: Line [1] with the overarching leadership trait and need of being courageous and is underscored with the need for having passion for what the leader does.

Who can maintain an argument that a guerrilla leader who leads a five-year protracted liberation struggle and 40 years after accomplishing his altruistic dream still reminds the country and whoever cares to listen to detailed narratives of not only how and why he did it but also unprompted by Parliament or his critics regularly provides personal accountability reports akin to an accountant’s balance sheet as well as the NRM’s Government collective responsibility service delivery statements whenever he gets the opportunity is not passionate about what he does?

On the same line is having the requisite personal strength and energy of leading a rapidly modernizing State. During the 2021 Election campaign he convincingly demonstrated that he had plenty of it when he executed the physical exercise of many ‘push-ups’ in Ugandan military parlance known as “kufunga makofi” all soldiers reportedly carry out usually as routine punishment for small offences at Boot Camp during basic military training!

This time round, older and wiser he again took his much younger body guards by surprise first by walking with them for a short distance on the red carpet led out for him and then perhaps to demonstrate to the Bazukulu and the entire Electorate that he is still endowed with a lot of stamina to lead the country for another term, without warning, suddenly broke into a 150-feet long sprint back to his Seat after delivering a keynote address at a function!

Besides, throughout his 40-year leadership he has traversed the entire width a length of the country, in the Ugandan version of English which, if you like, can be dubbed Ugaenglish, “to see for himself” what is happening in the different parts of the country he leads, whose public socio-economic development programmes he has over time initiated and to personally assess their progress and performance. Those who have followed his travels inside the country have seen him interacting with locals picked randomly to brief him and answer subsequent questions from him.

In the second line is the imperative of ‘being curious’ under which is indicated the need for ‘innovation, flexibility and exploration’. The second line starts with the imperative of ‘providing meaning’ under which falls motivation, vision and communication. Enabling others precedes teamwork, building relationships and getting the best out of others in the fourth line.

Take a plunge into the political history of the NRM and, without prejudice or bias, objectively tell us what you [Academia, the Public and Private Media Houses] see. His Excellency the President of Uganda’s track record speaks for itself and needs no further elaboration from this writer who leaves the task to him and his campaign team to unveil in the NRM Paty Manifesto.

The writer is a retired Diplomat and former Head of the Department of Diplomacy, Governance and International Studies at Uganda Martyrs University, pioneer Director of Lubaga Campus, and is a Board Member of the private think-tank Uganda Council on Foreign Relations [UCFR] and has been a Member of the IGAD High Level Mediation Roster since 2014.