The Military Ethos in the Politics of Post-1986 Uganda

This paper argues that military ethos play a central role in the politics of post-1986 Uganda. This phenomenon is a product of the intersection between the country’s sociopolitical history and the discourse that brought the incumbent ruling party, the National Resistance Movement, to power. Both the ruling party and the leading opposition party, the Forum for Democratic Change — an off-shoot of the former — have strong military orientation. To resonate with the populace’s shared perceptions that attach a high symbolic capital to the military ethos, the two dominant parties use military branding as one of their vital strategies. In deconstructing the centrality of military ethos in politics, the paper draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking tools of “habitus”, “field of power” and “symbolic capital”.