Paper short abstract:

This paper builds on the literature underpinning new 'second orthodoxy' aid methods through political-ethnographic analysis of a 'locally led' governance programme in Uganda.

Paper long abstract:

This paper applies and develops a theory of 'intimate governance' to show how the locally led features of a 'politically smart' programme operated in the context of Uganda's decentralisation project. Analysis, based on interviews, document reviews and participant observation, shows how the programme both shaped and was shaped by its institutional environment through mutual interaction. In a context of centralised state authority, the programme aimed to push resources and fiscal autonomy down to the local level through 'embedded' technical assistance for fiscal decentralisation reforms. It did this via a 'brokering', intermediary role: navigating and negotiating the complex set of interests determining the shape and implementation of the reforms.

The mechanisms of 'intimate governance' allowed the programme to influence governance arrangements by directly participating in the daily practices of 'doing the state'. In the context of shifting political constraints, however, the programme's embedded position within Uganda's financial technocracy meant that its capacity to support pro-poor outcomes remained fundamentally constrained by the ongoing politics of regime survival. The paper concludes by discussing its implications on a 'politically smart' model that seeks to create change through forms of contextual alignment. It questions a tendency within the so-called 'second orthodoxy' to view local political realities as largely instrumental, rather than capable of change.