Devolution and outsourcing of municipal services in Kampala city,Uganda: an early assessment

The late 1980s saw the beginning of wide‐ranging economic and political reforms in Africa, prompted by both external and internal pressures. Demands for political reform pushed for democratisation, including decentralisation of power and resources to lower levels of government. Alongside pressures for democratisation were those for economic liberalisation, including the rolling back of the state characterised by, among other things, reducing its role in service provision. This article looks at aspects of political and economic liberalisation in Uganda, involving devolution and outsourcing of service provision in Kampala city. It focuses on the city's experience with devolution and outsourcing of solid waste management. It shows that, pockets of resistance notwithstanding, the reforms enjoyed widespread popularity and led to many positive changes. In addition, it shows that they begot problems and encountered others that rendered the process of change more problematic than its advocates had anticipated. Its major conclusion is that while devolution and outsourcing are useful tools for improving service delivery, they cannot ensure long‐term success in the absence of financial, technical and managerial capacity on the part of contractors and contracting authorities. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boris Annenkoff: A central Asian bayard

Far East

The Origins of the Cultural Revolution. Vol. 1: Contradictions among the People, 1956–1957. By Roderick MacFarquhar. London, Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1974. Pp. 439. Illus. Index. £5.50.

Capital Formation in Mainland China, 1952–1965. By Kang Chao. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1974. Pp. 178. Statistics. Bibliog. Index. £6.00.

Land Reform in the People's Republic of China. By John Wong. New York, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1974. Pp. 319. £9.50.

The Nine Sacred Mountains of China: An Illustrated Record of Pilgrimages made in the years 1935–1936. By Mary A. Mullikin and Anna M. Hotchkis. Hong Kong, Vetch and Lee, 1973. Pp. 156. Map. Illus. Index. HK $75.00.

Economic Institutional Change in Tokugawa Japan: Osaka and the Kinai Cotton Trade. By William B. Hauser. Cambridge University Press, 1974. Pp. 239. Maps. Tables. Bibliog. Index. £6.00.

South‐East Asia

Twenty Years Indonesian Foreign Policy 1945–65. By Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung. The Hague, Mouton, 1974. Pp. 640. Bibliog. Index. 69 guilders.

Indonesia After the 1971 Elections. Edited by Oey Hong Lee. London, Oxford University Press for the University of Hull (Hull Monographs on South‐East Asia No. 5), 1974. Pp. 116. Index. £2.00.

A Nation in the Making: The Philippines and the United States, 1899–1921. By Peter W. Stanley. Cambridge, Mass., and London, Harvard University Press, 1974. Pp. 340. Bibliog. Index. £7.00.

Central Asia

Travels into Bokhara, together with a Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus. By Sir Alexander Burnes, FRS, with a new introduction by Major‐General James Lunt, CBE. Karachi, Oxford University Press, 1973. 3 vols. Map. Illus. Index. £14.95 the set (Vol. 3 £4.25).

Central Asian Review 1953–1971: Complete Contents. Subject Index to accompany the 35 mm. microfilm edition of Central Asian Review. London, Central Asian Research Centre, 1973. Pp. 49.

Afghanistan. By Louis Dupree. Princeton University Press, 1973. Pp. 760. Maps. Illus. Appendices. Bibliog. Index. $22.50.

South Asia

Radical Politics in South Asia. Edited by Paul R. Brass and Marcus F. Franda. Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1973. Pp. 449. Index. £6.75.

Population, Politics and the Future of Southern Asia. Edited by W. Howard Wriggins and James F. Guyot. New York and London, Columbia University Press, 1974. Pp. 402. Index. £4.25.

The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. IV: The Bengal Famine and the New Viceroyalty, 15 June 1943–31 August 1944. Edited by Nicholas Mansergh and E. W. R. Lumby. London, HMSO, 1973. Pp. 1,295. Appendix. Glossary. Index. £13.00.

India's Revolution: Gandhi and the Quit India Movement. By Francis G. Hutchins. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. ix+326. Bibliog. Index. £8.00.

A New System of Slavery. The Export of Indian Labour Overseas. 1830–1920. By Hugh Tinker. London, Oxford University Press for the Institute of Race Relations, 1974. Pp. 432. Maps. Illus. Bibliog. Index. £5.75.

A Matter of Honour: an account of the Indian Army, its officers and men. By Philip Mason. London, Jonathan Cape, 1974. Pp. 580. Maps. Bibliog. Index. £5.75.

Sind: Before the Muslim Conquest (History of Sind Series, Volume II). By H. T. Lambrick. Hyderabad, Oxford University Press, 1974. Pp. 217. Maps. Notes. Indices. £3.90.

Politics in Sri Lanka 1947–1973. By A. Jeyaratnam Wilson. London, Macmillan, 1974. Pp. 347. Index. £7.50.

Middle East

Information and the Arab Cause. By M. Abdel‐Kadir Hatem. London, Longman, 1974. Pp. 320. Index. £4.75.

Survival or Hegemony? The Foundations of Israeli Foreign Policy. By Samuel J. Roberts. Baltimore and London, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Pp. 162. Bibliog. Index. £1.40.

The United Arab Emirates. An Economic and Social Survey. By K. G. Fenelon. London, Longman, 1973. Pp. 145. Appendices Bibliog. Index. £3.00.

Muscat and Oman: the End of an Era. By Ian Skeet. London, Faber &; Faber, 1974. Pp. 224. Illus. Bibliog. Appendices. Index. £3.95.

Modernization Without Revolution: Lebanon's Experience. By Elie Adib Salem. Bloomington and London, Indiana University Press, 1973. Pp. 174. Index. £4.20.

The Economic Development of Iran. A Recent Survey with Projections to 1981. By Robert E. Looney. New York, Praeger; London, Pall Mall Press, 1974. Pp. 199. Bibliog. £6.50.

Among the Dervishes. By O. M. Burke. London, Octagon Press, 1973. Pp. 203. Bibliog. £1.75.

Philosophy

Teachings of Rumi: the Masnavi. Abridged and translated by E. H. Whinfield. London, Octagon Press, 1973. Pp. 330. £4.00.

The Spirit of the East. By the Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. London, Octagon Press, 1973. Pp. 277. £3.50.

Memoirs

With Great Truth and Respect. By Paul Gore‐Booth. London, Constable, 1974. Pp. 440. Illus. Index. £5.00.     

From rural rebellions to urban riots: political competition and changing patterns of violent political revolt in Uganda

Violent political revolt has been common in independent Uganda. For a long time, such revolts were exclusively expressed as rural-based rebel groups fighting the government. Since the mid-2000s, however, this seems to have come to an end. Instead, urban riots, very rare in the past, have become much more common. This article analyses these changing patterns of types and location of violent political revolt in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement government. It argues that the earlier prevalence of rural rebellions can be explained by the combination of a coercive and militarised state, and weak and ethnically factionalised political forces who took their violent resistance to rural regional bases. Over time, however, government counter-insurgency became more effective and the conditions for insurgency were undermined by withdrawal of external support. Furthermore, the reintroduction of multi-party politics in 2005 opened up new avenues for political expression. The changes to the political system were, however, more nominal than real in many respects. While the rebel option had become less attractive and feasible, a series of social, economic and political grievances remained which were only partly channelled through party politics. They also found expression through sporadic urban violent revolt.     

Youth Adversities Amplify the Association between Adult Stressors and Chronic Inflammation in a Domain Specific Manner: Nuancing the Early Life Sensitivity Model

There is strong evidence that chronic, systemic inflammation hastens onset of the diseases of old age that ultimately lead to death. Importantly, several studies suggest that childhood adversity predicts chronic inflammation. Unfortunately, this research has been plagued by retrospective reports of childhood adversity, an absence of controls for adult stressors, and a failure to investigate various competing models of the link between childhood adversity and chronic inflammation. The present study was designed to address these limitations. Using 18 years of data collected from 413 African Americans (58% female) included in the Family and Community Health Study, hierarchical regression analyses provided support for a nuanced early life sensitivity explanation for the link between early adversity and adult chronic inflammation. Controlling for health risk behaviors and adult SES, late childhood (ages 10–12) adversity amplified the association between adult adversity (age 29) and chronic inflammation. This interaction operated in a domain-specific fashion. Harsh parenting amplified the relation between intimate partner hostility and inflammation, whereas early discrimination amplified the relation between adult discrimination and inflammation. These findings suggest that individuals may be primed to respond physiologically to adverse adult circumstances that resemble those experienced earlier in life.

     

The Impact of Natural Resources: Survey of Recent Quantitative Evidence

Abstract

The cross-country empirical evidence for the natural resource curse is ample, but unfortunately fraught with econometric difficulties. A recent wave of studies on measuring the impact of natural resource windfalls on the economy exploits novel datasets such as giant oil discoveries to identify effects of windfalls, uses natural experiments and within-country econometric analysis, and estimates local impacts. These studies offer more hope in the search of quantitative evidence.