Heightening Leadership Effectiveness in Local Governments of Uganda: ‘Challenge the Process’ for Organisational Support

ABSTRACT

Leadership effectiveness is an enviable characteristic in public as well as in private organisations. This article presents a discussion of the leadership practice known as ‘Challenge the Process’; within the context of Bushenyi district local government administration in Uganda. The discussion reveals that the leadership practice of ‘challenge the process’ influences the organisational climate and can be influential in generating change within an organisation. The study also demonstrates that Bushenyi district employees associate the behaviour patterns of their leaders and supervisors with the organisation. Based on data collected, the argument is that the leadership practice of ‘challenge the process’ positively influences employees’ perceived organisational support in Bushenyi local government of Uganda. The conclusions are in agreement with Kouzes and Posner (2002) that leaders who ‘challenge the process’ can achieve extraordinary results and improve employees’ perceived organisational support.

The article recommends that in the current environment of local government administration in Uganda be characterised by a democratic political dispensation and private-public sector initiatives; leaders should consider not merely being mindful of the rules and standing instructions in public administration; must be innovative, willing to take risks, and challenge assumptions about the way things have always been done in order to increase employees’ perceived organisational support. As stressed by Kouzes and Posner (2002), leaders in local governments can promote the resourcefulness of employees at work through the practice of ‘challenge the process’.     

Desired or deserving leadership? A reflection on the leadership exercised in local governments of Uganda

Abstract

The article presents survey findings of the leadership styles exercised in local governments and examines whether leadership influences organisational performance in Uganda's local governments. Based on survey findings from Bushenyi District, both transactional and transformational leadership styles are evidently exercised in Uganda's local governments. The study findings further reveal that leadership behaviours in Bushenyi District are often characterised by idealised influence (behaviour), inspirational motivation, high laissez-faire leadership and high management-by-exception (passive). As a result, there is increasing job insecurity among subordinates, which undermines the internal organisational ability to perform. Four sub-counties in Bushenyi District were selected for the purpose of this research. Using Multifactor Leadership Questionnaires (MLQs), data were derived from 123 respondents (36 leaders and 87 raters).     

The PIRA,D-Company,and the Crime-Terror Nexus

This article compares and contrasts the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and D-Company, two seemingly dissimilar organisations that nonetheless share some striking commonalities, especially in regards to the use of tactics that contradict their declared ideology in pursuit of a larger goal. First, the growing relationship between organised criminal syndicates and terror groups is discussed and Makarenko's well-known “Crime-Terror Continuum” introduced. Following this, a historical overview and an analysis of the organisational structure of the PIRA is provided and organisational models proposed. Further, the founding and development of D-Company is addressed in addition to the syndicate's intricate involvement in the 1993 Bombay Blasts. Similarly, organisational models are offered and conclusions drawn. This work then moves to a comparative analysis of the organisational and operating structure of the PIRA and D-Company and finishes with a brief conclusion. This article argues that although criminal syndicates and militant groups may have different organisation structures, the line that distinguishes their activities has begun to blur and the space between Makarenko's graduated levels is becoming smaller and less discernible, thus rendering her model obsolete.     

Victimisation and Attitudes Towards Former Political Prisoners in Northern Ireland

The release of ex-combatants and the mechanisms for their re-integration within society has become an increasingly controversial issue in peace settlements. Yet to date, the view of victims concerning such arrangements in post-conflict societies remains unexplored. Mindful of this omission and using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article investigates the relationship between victimisation and attitudes towards the treatment of former political prisoners. Based on the 2011 Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, the results suggest that individual victims—those who directly and/or indirectly experienced violent incidents—are notably less supportive of a punitive approach towards the treatment of former political prisoners than non-victims. Moreover, this is particularly the case when victims from within the Catholic community are considered. The Northern Ireland evidence suggests that victims can act as a positive and inclusive force in terms of the rehabilitation and re-integration of former combatants in societies emerging from conflict.     

Ethnic Elites and Rituals of Provocation: Politicians,Pastors, and Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

Prominent theories of ethnic conflict argue that instrumental ethnic elites incite violence in order to promote their own power. Yet this approach focuses primarily on political leaders and ignores other ethnic elites, meaning that we know little about how other influential actors think about provocation. In this paper, I present novel data from Northern Ireland on diverse elite attitudes toward polarising Protestant parades with a long history of sparking ethnic violence. Using original surveys of Protestant elected officials and clergy as well as interviews with ex-paramilitaries, this paper demonstrates that these elite groups have different, often competing, interests and opinions regarding contested parades: while politicians tend to support provocative parades, the others do not. By addressing elite actors that are often ignored, I present a more nuanced picture of elite-mass relations and ethnic mobilisation in conflict.     

Globalisation and making sense of the world

Abstract

This article grapples with the problem of understanding present human life and circumstances, and the challenges humans face in their effort to make sense of it. The importance of theory in this quest is emphasised. Two notions are considered in terms of their value towards this endeavour: globalisation and worlding. Globalisation is the current buzz word and some of the issues related to this term have been named. The term world is, however, preferred to globalisation, since world does not refer to the impersonal globe, cosmos or universe. The term world, or worlding, wants to emphasise humanisation and further signifies sense-making. Sense-making, however, is no easy matter. On the one hand, it involves the threatening reality of evil, not in the religious sense but in a profound ethical sense. On the other hand, it involves the process of the expansion of consciousness carried and supported by the ascent into the noosphere which offers an awareness of a kind of thinking other than and different from logical reasoning. While the one warns against the mechanisation of the mind, the other maintains that technique is a point of support for the spiritualisation of humanity. This world compels us to find or make sense of it; world is precisely where there is a place, a true place, for everybody. If this were not the case there would only be a globe: a place of exile where we would exist as strangers.     

Elections and landmark policies in Tanzania and Uganda

Much of the relevant literature on Africa downplays the salience of elections for policy-making and implementation. Instead, the importance of factors such as clientelism, ethnicity, organized interest groups, and donor influence, is emphasized. We argue that, in addition, elections now motivate political elites to focus on policies they perceive to be able to gain votes. This is based on analyses of six landmark decisions made during the last 15 years in the social, productive, and public finance sectors in Tanzania and Uganda. Such policies share a number of key characteristics: they are clearly identifiable with the party in power; citizens are targeted countrywide; and policy implementation aims at immediate, visible results.     

Crossing the limen: terrorist prisoners and the politically liminal process of imprisonment

Being processed through prison, for the politically violent, can be understood to be a liminal occurrence. Drawing upon the experiences of imprisoned Republicans in Northern Ireland, this study contrasts internment and imprisonment and situates these militants within the conditions of liminality – the role of comradeship; the liminal as dangerous and polluting; their being hidden and stripped. The study explores how imprisonment seeks to refashion militants by undermining the frames for their militancy. Liminality is suggested as an alternative conceptual tool for critically reflecting upon counter-terrorism.     

《九朝律考》“北优于南”说献疑

程树德先生在法史学的定鼎之作--<九朝律考>中反复表达了这样一个观点:在南北朝分裂之际,中原律学,衰于南而盛于北.此观点影响久远,目前通行的法史教材中基本上都在复述这一观点.在阅读<九朝律考>的基础上,献上三点心得:北魏律之优未能一以贯之;南朝诸律并非无所建树;北周律并非无善可陈.     

Land governance as grey zone: the political incentives of land reform implementation in Africa

Weak state capacity has often been in focus when explaining why land reform in sub-Saharan Africa is not implemented. However, an analysis of the deeper politics of land reform brings our attention to a set of incentives which allow rules governing land to be open to interpretation. This article demonstrates that in Uganda, the need to maintain the ruling coalition in a clientelist political settlement to build electoral support, and the desire to attract economic investors, constitute political incentives to maintain land governance as a grey zone, even if there is apparent political will to implement land reforms.