Abstract EN:

The study aims to analyse the impact of magendo (swahili word loosely defined as the informal or parallel economy) on the material, political and social organisation in uganda. The central thesis of the study is that magendo contributed to the creation of an organisational motive force that progressively transformed the political and economic structures in uganda. The study therefore aims to demonstrate that the expansion of a vast informal economy led to the invention by the population of novel legal and social norms that gradually replaced state law in certain spheres. Magendo is also in the process of restructuring the different economies at a regional level. The state was obliged to realign itself to the new economic configuration and to undertake an equivalent political adjustment. It changed its laws to align them to the more operational and functional practices and norms that society had forged for itself, with the liberalization policies playing an ambiguous role in this process. The thesis posits that as a result of these transformations, new state forms, which do not preclude a new state hegemony, may be emerging.