Political Settlements and Productive Sector Policies: Understanding Sector Differences in Uganda

This article uses a political settlement framework to better understand why ruling elites support some productive sectors and not others. I focus on how ruling elites build and maintain their ruling coalition. I argue that promoting particular productive activities is favored when the relationship between ruling elites and the relevant industry actors is important for building and/or maintaining the ruling coalition. This was the case in the Ugandan dairy sector but not in the fisheries sector and with regard to advisory services reform where the original initiatives ran against the interests of powerful factions. These findings help to improve our knowledge about the political sources of sector differences.