Kingdom, State and Civil Society in Africa

Civil society is one of several Western
political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to
Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern
Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded
new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as
an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new
civil society organizations had little in common with African
associational activity.

Focusing on the characteristics and
behavior of long-standing African organizations would appear a better
starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil
society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda
Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central
to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a
civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions
offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and
understanding Ugandan politics.