This article shows that aid-dependent states can access donor resources for regime maintenance purposes by using (and challenging) internationally devised narratives on issues such as state fragility. Examining the case of Uganda, it finds that the Museveni regime has used ‘image management’ strategies and the concept of state fragility to secure sustained international support and avoid censure for governance transgressions.
The labelling of certain states as ‘fragile’ has often been portrayed as an act of Western domination. But this article notes that such labels also present opportunities to non-Western governments.
The article finds that the aid-dependent government of Uganda has increased its room for manoeuvre with donors by using two contradictory narratives – the Ugandan state as ‘fragile’ and as ‘strong’. The Museveni government has used the ‘fragile state’ concept by emphasising the degree of instability in the north of the country. Simultaneously, the regime has also challenged the ‘fragile state’ label for Uganda by emphasising its rebuilding of the country. This narrative presents Uganda as stable, strong and secure, and has also been effectively used by Kampala to gain international assistance.
The contrast between donors’ personal, daily experience of the secure Ugandan capital (the ‘centre’) and their rare, usually fleeting, stage-managed and highly securitised encounters with the distant rebel-ridden periphery has enabled the regime to present multiple, equally persuasive narratives on Ugandan state fragility to donors. The Ugandan government has consistently and proactively attempted to manage donor access to the country’s periphery and to third-party information on the region in order to position itself as the key ‘intelligence source’ for donors.
The fact that donor officials have been persuaded to view Uganda as both ‘strong’ and ‘fragile’ highlights the weakness of the fragile states concept itself. Like many other states, Uganda is neither wholly strong nor wholly fragile. This suggests that international development interventions based on a more nuanced approach – recognising and accounting for local and regional variations below the level of the monolithic ‘state’ – are more likely to be effective.
In reshaping donor understandings of state integrity in Uganda, the Museveni regime has secured agency in the international system at a deep level. This challenges the existing commentary on ‘fragile states’ that characterises the concept solely as a Western imposition on politically inert African states. It also highlights the importance of critiquing and developing existing notions of agency and ‘agencies’ in the relationship between Western donors and the recipients of their aid.
