Post-conflict reconstruction refers to the complex process whereby societies strive to overcome internal armed conflict and (re-)establish peaceful and stable political arrangements. The central question addressed in this thesis is whether Uganda's transformation under Y. Museveni's National Resistance Movement (NRM) between 1986 and 2000 is a successful case of post-conflict reconstruction, as is widely held. As a corollary, it asks how the interaction between the NRM and the international community has affected this process. The thesis argues that, in spite of the NRM's remarkable achievements, Uganda's reconstruction is deeply flawed. Most importantly, a legitimate framework for the allocation, exercise and reproduction of political power has not been established. The reconstruction strategy, shaped by the NRM's character as a politicised guerrilla group and dominated by the imperative of regime survival, was inherently twin-faced. It restored political authority and security to most areas of the country, enabling, amongst other achievements, economic recovery. However, it also unleashed military interventionism, led to political closure, and created a fragile and politicised economic order. As such, the NRM's actions attracted increasing opposition, expressed through political and military means. The ancillary argument is that, notwithstanding the pre-eminence of domestic factors, Uganda's transformation has been highly dependent on the support of an interested international community. The NRM was willing and able to adapt to donors' priority concerns, in particular to introduce liberal economic reform, and strategically used donor support to build its power. For their part, donors found the NRM's authority and commitment to structural adjustment quite irresistible. Agendas thus converged, generating mutual dependence. As a result, donors overlooked how their support was diverted, and how the NRM's security policies and political reforms diverged from stated principles. The donors' approach promoted the consolidation of the NRM's power, yet at the expense of the legitimacy of Uganda's reconstruction.

Le foncier, entendu comme des relations entre les humains à propos de la terre, est au cœur de la répartition des pouvoirs, particulièrement dans les sociétés à dominantes agraires. Encadrer sa gestion à travers la formulation d'une politique publique signifie altérer les rapports entre l'État et les pouvoirs locaux, et la manière dont l’État entend construire un pouvoir de contrôle sur les hommes et le territoire. À travers l'exemple de l'Ouganda sous le régime du National Resistance Movement (NRM), cette thèse en science politique analyse la manière dont une politique publique foncière se fabrique en interaction avec les structures de pouvoir. Nous touchons ici aux rapports entre polity, politics et policy. Appréhendée comme une activité politique, la fabrication d’une politique publique foncière en contextes africains n’est pas qu’une affaire d’État. Elle est une source de légitimité politique pour les acteurs intégrés au processus. Son instrumentalisation peut profiter à un changement de rapports de force. Ce processus commence à partir de la fabrication des énoncés de problème et aboutit à la négociation d'une solution. Cette recherche inductive se fonde sur des méthodes de recherche qualitative : observations participantes, entretiens semi-structurés, recours à la littérature grise et aux archives. Elle est le fruit d'un travail de terrain de quatre ans en Ouganda. Cette thèse innove d'un point de vue théorique en intégrant l'approche discursive et pragmatique de l'action publique à l'approche structurationniste. Elle lie cette approche à la notion « d'historicité de l’État importé ». Ce cadre théorique permet d'étudier les mouvements d'ordre et de désordre de la société qu'engendre la formulation des énoncés de problème et de solution. Elle fournit aussi un apport empirique détaillé à l'étude de la politique foncière en Ouganda. Cette thèse contribue ainsi à l'étude de la démocratisation en Afrique, de celle du foncier en Afrique, et de celle des politiques publiques en contextes africains. / Land tenure, defined as the set of relations among humans that determine their interaction with land, lies at the heart of power struggles, especially in agrarian societies. Governing land management through public policy means changing power relations between the state and the local institutions that exercise social control. Using Uganda under the regime of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) as its case study, this thesis in political science explores the manner a public policy concerning land is constructed through the interactions among various power structures. We are dealing here with the interactions among polity, politics and policy. Examined as a political activity, the construction of a public policy concerning land in African contexts goes beyond a matter of concern for the state alone. This activity is a source of political legitimacy for those actors participating in the process. Its instrumentalisation can lead to changes in power relations. This process starts with the construction of the problem and ends with the negotiation of a solution. This inductive research is based on qualitative research methods : participant observation, semi-structured interviews, analysis of grey literature and of archives. It is based on four years of field work in Uganda. This thesis innovates theoretically as it integrates the discursive and pragmatic approach of public policy to structuration theory. It ties this approach to the notion of « historicity of the imported state ». This theoretical framework allows us to study the ordering and disordering of society that are triggered by the formulation of problems and solutions. It provides a detailed empirical study of public policy concerning land in Uganda. This thesis contributes, more generally, to the study of democratisation in Africa, land tenure in Africa and public policy in African contexts.

On July 29 2000, Uganda held a referendum to decide whether to continue with the ruling Noparty Movement system or to revert to the Multi-party platform. This research entails a qualitative content analysis of the role the media played in driving debate and understanding of the referendum and its role in the country’s democratisation process. The research is informed by Jurgen Habermas’s public sphere paradigm as well as the sociological theory of news production. The research covers Uganda’s two English dailies – The New Vision and The Monitor, examining whether they provided a public sphere accessible to all citizens and devoid of ideological hegemony. It concludes that the newspapers were incapable of providing such a sphere because of the structural nature of Ugandan society and the papers’ own capitalistic backgrounds and ownership interests. The research concludes that such English language newspapers published in a country with a low literacy rate and low income levels, can only provide a public sphere to elite and privileged sections of society. A case is then made that multiple public spheres would be better suited to represent the views of diverse interest groups.