Book Review: The Political Kingdom of Uganda
| Date | 01 June 1962 |
| Author | Ronald Cohen |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206201700228 |
| Published date | 01 June 1962 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK REVIEWS
185
doubt
some
justification
for
the
criticism;
but
such a
commentary
as
this,
informed
as
it
is by
a
wholly unconvincing
theory,
will
do
little
or
nothing
to
dispel
the
ignorance,
or
to
awaken the
interest
that
would
lead
to
more careful
study.
University
of
Toronto
D.
J.
McDOUGALl.
THE
POLITICAL
KINGDOM
OF
UGANDA.
A
Study
in
Bureaucratic
National-
ism.
By
David
E.
Apter.
1961.
(Princeton: Princeton
University
Press.
Toronto:
S.
J.
Reginald
Saunders.
xvi,
498pp.
$11.50.)
Uganda
is
soon
to
move
into
national
independence
as
a federation,
in
which
Buganda
will
be
governed
as
a
federated
state
through
the
aegis
of
its
own
parliament.
A
"consociational"
government
of
this type
is predicted
and
hoped
for
by
Professor Apter,
in his
new
book.
Using
a
mass
of
detailed
data
which
brings
political
science,
sociology,
and
anthropology
together
at
a
state
level of
analysis, Apter
combines
his
facts
with a
highly
sophisticated
theoretical
framework
that
enables
him
to
discuss
political
life
in
Africa
in
terms
of
its
wider and
significant
relationships
to
historical
tradition
and
social processes.
The
key
factor
in
his
analysis
is
the
separatist
quality
of
Buganda
political
life within
the
Uganda
Protectorate,
and
the
problems
that
Buganda-Uganda
re-
latonships
have incurred
in
the
course of
the
colonial
era.
This
separatism
is
such
a
powerful force in
the
country
that
Uganda
nationalist
politics
has always
been
interpreted
in
Buganda
to
be
the
assertion
of
Buganda
rights
and autonomy.
One
way
out
of
such
an
impasse
is
for
a
federation
to
evolve
in
which
traditional
political
organization
is
respected,
and
a
compromise
emerges
at
both
the
na-
tional
and
"provincial"
levels.
Apter suggests
that
the
only
other
alternative
is
a
mobilization
of
the
nation
under
the
autocratic
guidance
of
a
strong
party
leadership
which opposes
tradition
forcefully
and
organizes
a popular
front
of
party
support
committed
to rapid
socio-
economic
development.
(He
does
not seriously consider
the
probability
of
"balkanization"
exemplified
in
Katanga,
and
rightly
so since
such
action
in
Buganda
would
be
quite unfeasible,
even
though
the
Kabaka's
government
actually
tried
an abortive
secession
last
year.) Ghana
and
Guinea
are
examples
of
the
mobilization
type,
while
Nigeria serves
as
a contemporary
African
example
of
the
federal
system, in
which
development
is
slower
but
in
which
"they
do
not
penalize
those
who
have
lived
lives
in
the
best
way
they
know how,
nor
do
they
betray
the
natural
wisdom
of
their
people."
(p.
477).
Throughout
the
various
stages
of
the
colonial
era,
no
strong
Uganda-wide
political
movement
has ever
congealed
into a
well-organ-
ized
political
party.
Indeed
Apter
suggests
that
Buganda
itself has
been
in
effect
the
most
successful political
party
in
the
country.
Thus
the
only
path
open
to Uganda
is
federalism containing
well
constructed
constitutional
guarantees
for
Buganda's
semi-autonomy
within
Uganda
as
a
whole,
or
even
for
that
matter,
within
a
wider
East
African
Federation.
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