This paper explores the politics of legislative institutional strengthening and distributive politics in dominant party regimes, illustrating a novel analytical approach through an examination of the Ugandan case. The core argument is that the legislature becomes a more assertive institution where there is greater fragmentation of patron-client factions, which erodes party cohesion and transforms parliament into an arena for intra-elite bargaining. Given that legislators’ energy is focused largely on factional jockeying, the distributive implications of legislative activity—particularly when it comes to fiscal policy, whether expenditure or taxation—are largely regressive; politicians seek to direct material rewards towards themselves and their supporting networks rather than the majority of voters. This does not mean that there is no scope for more progressive redistribution, but I find that pro-poor policies are the exception. Moreover, politicians’ individual incentives to build up a political base in their constituencies are insufficient motivation to bring about progressive outcomes. Rather, ambitious and redistributive legislative interventions occur in the relatively rare moments when power is temporarily concentrated in horizontal, non-elite organizations, be they labour unions, farmers’ association, faith or other advocacy groups. These external pressures—especially when able to play off elite-level tensions—help galvanize legislative action of a more progressive bent.
This argument runs counter to a dominant distributive politics literature, which adopts a rational choice approach to argue that stronger parliaments—and "democratizing" reforms generally—lead to more progressive redistribution, notably because politicians are ostensibly incentivised to respond to median voter demands. My approach forgoes the methodological individualism of this literature to instead probe how power is distributed within and between elite and non-elite groups, and what this means for distributive politics. I demonstrate my argument by opening the black box of actual legislative activity, rather than focusing on aggregate level outcomes. The aim is to examine the politics behind specific instances of legislative interventions, all with clear fiscal implications. In particular, I look at bargaining with the executive over legislators’ emoluments, on the one hand, and additional increments to the health and education budgets, on the other. To complete the process tracing analysis of each case, I draw on a mix of interview and archival data collected over a cumulative seven months of fieldwork in Uganda. This research was conducted as part of my PhD, which compares Uganda and Tanzania.