This article explores Uganda’s decision to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia in 2007 as part of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and argues that the intervention has as much to do with Uganda’s relationship with its donors as it has with maintaining regional stability – the official justification for intervention. Museveni’s decision to intervene in Somalia is the most recent example of his regime’s multipronged ‘image management’ strategy in which the President has involved Uganda in numerous foreign and domestic activities to ensure that donors perceive his government in a particular way vis-à-vis their interests: as an economic success story, a guarantor of regional stability, or, in relation to Somalia, an ally in the global war on terror. In so doing Museveni’s strategy, conceptualized here within a constructivist framework, has been able largely to avoid censure in areas of traditional donor concern such as governance, thereby achieving a considerable degree of agency in a seemingly asymmetric relationship.
In exploring why Uganda chose to intervene in Somalia, the article argues that international considerations, particularly a desire to manage donor perceptions, were the most important factor motivating Museveni’s decision. Reliant upon donor funding, the regime has been vulnerable to possible donor governance conditionalities that threaten to undermine its hold on power. In order to retain international support while evading such conditionalities, Kampala made a concerted effort to manage how donors perceive it by engaging proactively and skilfully in the process of donor knowledge construction. By establishing and advancing images of itself that depict Uganda as valuable to Western policy makers, the regime has been able to persuade them that it continues to be worthy of assistance in spite of democratic transgressions. The construction and management of these images has entailed both practical and presentational strategies, including embracing policies favoured by donors, employing Western lobbying firms, continuous engagement with Western news agencies and think tanks, and dialogue with key donor policy makers.
The government’s intervention in Somalia has been part of this image management strategy and has been aimed at bolstering one of several images promoted by Kampala – Uganda as an ‘ally against terrorism’. In providing evidence for this claim, the regime’s historical advancement of this narrative has been explored and it has been shown that its rhetoric on Somalia (at least outside Uganda) has developed naturally from within this discursive tradition. The decision to involve Ugandan troops in Somalia, therefore, was made as part of a conscious and longstanding Kampala strategy to manage its international image and to secure, thereby, greater agency in its relations with donors.
Such an analysis clearly has implications beyond Uganda and provides a novel, constructivist framework for understanding other donor–recipient relationships and the extent to which space for African agency can be carved out within them. It is important to note, however, that while the Museveni government is not the first African government to attempt to manage how its donors perceive it, is has nevertheless undertaken one of the most skilled and comprehensive approaches to doing so. It is telling, for example, that the other African contributor to AMISOM – Burundi – has not fared as well as Uganda in maintaining donor support since 2007. Indeed, in March 2011, the UK announced that its aid programme in the country would close and, in explaining this decision, made no mention of Bujumbura’s involvement in the Somalia operation or in fighting terrorism.
Burundi’s contribution to AMISOM did not appear, therefore, to have persuaded London that it, like Uganda, was worthy of continued support as a valuable ally in the GWOT. Whether or not this can be explained by Bujumbura’s consistent failure to present its involvement internationally in such terms, or indeed as part of any narrative, is purely speculative at this stage. What is clear from this, is that donor support for an African government is not necessarily assured even if that government is involved in donor-sponsored peacekeeping activities. Relationships between donors and African states are based upon years of interaction and confidence building, and can rarely be boiled down to a series of quid pro quo deals. But supporting AMISOM has been a successful means for Kampala to secure agency with donors because it resonates with a longstanding and well established narrative promoted by the Museveni regime about its value to the international community.
