The Influence of Citizen Political Competence on Local Governance in Uganda: a Case Study of Mbarara District

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of citizen political competence on their participation in Uganda’s local governance setting. The thesis was based on objectives focusing on the ways in which citizen political knowledge influenced involvement in determining their local interests and the linkage between citizen political sensemaking and participation in local governance instruments’ formulation. It also investigated how citizen strategic influence affects their exercise of public oversight over local officials. Informed by the public choice theory but profoundly utilizing quantitative and qualitative methods, the thesis underscores the role of political competence in its core dimensions of political knowledge, sensemaking and strategic influence as established in Uganda’s local governance landscape. Findings substantiated how shifts in the structure and operations of Uganda’s local governance have been influenced by intricate socio-economic, public policy and global forces outspreading to limited education, poverty, state reforms, neopatrimonialism and economic liberalization. In multi-dimensional perspectives, the investigation revealed how the same dynamics have undercut the overall local interests’ delivery mechanisms in Uganda. The study recommended public reforms in education programs, legal and institutional civic engagements for strengthening the governance and capacity building processes in rural information infrastructure, bringing ordinary citizens at the centre of controlling the local democratic decision-making systems in order to cater for their interests.