Bareebe, Gerald. “An Army with a State or a State with an Army? The Military and Post-Conflict Governance in Uganda and Rwanda.” ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020.

This dissertation draws from original qualitative data collected from Uganda and Rwanda to explain strategies used by actors that win civil wars to restructure the authority and reach of the state in a new postwar society. It shows how the postwar regime in Uganda inherited a “residue” social structure, characterised by the persistence of resilient and well-entrenched elite interests. A key finding is that, to gain trust and legitimise his rule, the postwar regime leader in Uganda adopted a strategy involving co-optation of, collaboration with, and concessions to these interests, which ultimately led to the creation of a broad-based system of government designed purposely to accommodate varying interests of these social groups. By contrast, the post-genocide regime in Rwanda inherited a political structure that was completely shattered--without much “residue”. To gain legitimacy, the elites within the RPF (who had won the war) exploited the political vacuum to transform what had been a guerrilla group into a strong centralised military regime, justifying the creation of a strong and cohesive military regime as a buttress against genocide.

Source: extracted from dissertation's abstract