Crisis of Legitimacy and Political Violence Under the Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF), 1979–1980

Abstract

This chapter discusses how and why the three Uganda National Liberation Front (UNLF) regimes maintained the failed state they inherited. During this period, the state became so much weak that widespread and intense political violence and instability enveloped the country. Ethnic and ideological politics, the reemergence and manipulation of the pre-Amin politics, the contested histories and politics of the liberation war, the unregulated circulation of arms and military uniforms, and the severe alienation and extermination of those from the West Nile region contributed to the severe crisis of legitimacy of the faltering state. Indeed, this crisis of legitimacy and the widespread political violence that enveloped the country added two layers of crisis state to the failed state: the predatory state and the warlord state.