Crisis of Legitimacy and Political Violence in Uganda, 1890 to 1979

This book demonstrates that societies experiencing prolonged and severe crises of legitimacy are prone to intense and persistent political violence. The most significant factor accounting for the persistence of intense political violence in Uganda is the severe crisis of legitimacy of the state, its institutions, political incumbents and their challengers. This crisis of legitimacy, which is shaped by both internal and external forces, past and present, accounts for the remarkable continuity in the history of political violence since the construction of the state.


Ogenga Otunnu is an Associate Professor at DePaul University, USA and the founding Director of the Graduate Program in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at DePaul University and co-founder of the Center for Forced Migration Studies at Northwestern University. He has lectured at the summer program on refugees and forced migration at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University for 15 years and has trained human rights organizations and NGOs working with displaced population in every region of the globe. He has published extensively on genocide, political violence, refugee and forced migration, nationalism, African philosophies, and human rights.