Browsing by Author "Machacek, Mark Jeffrey"

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    New Institutionalisms and the Resurgence of Traditional Authority in Sub-Saharan Africa: the Buganda Case Study
    (2013-10-02) Machacek, Mark Jeffrey; Ray, Donald
    The last two decades have witnessed a ‘resurgence’ of pre-colonially rooted authorities and institutions in the politics of Sub-Saharan Africa. What were once thought to be irrelevant and unfavorable traditional institutions are now a principal dynamic in contemporary Africa’s governance and development. What factors can be attributed to this traditional resurgence across the continent? Using data collected from fieldwork in Uganda, three causal factors were identified. The social entrenchment of the traditional institution, a collective sense of disillusionment with the central state and the formulation of new, contextually-based ideas played primary causal roles in the resurgence of the Buganda Kingdom. Three new institutionalist approaches – historical, sociological and discursive institutionalism – were employed in the identification, analysis and explanation of these causal factors. Therefore, this research also took on a methodological effort to reconcile the differences between often competing new institutionalist approaches and to demonstrate how they may be complimentary to each other.