Message from the Head of Department
Warm greetings and welcome to the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Kyambogo University. This Department started as a section under the Department of History and was established as an independent Department in 2022 after a government restructuring exercise. The Department offers exciting undergraduate and postgraduate academic programmes: Bachelor of Public Administration and Resource Governance, Bachelor of Arts in Security and Diplomatic Studies, and Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences; Masters of Public Administration and Resource Governance, Masters of Security and Diplomatic Studies, Postgraduate Diploma in Security and Diplomatic Studies and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Public Policy and Governance respectively. These programmes are primarily designed to nurture excellence and provide students with an exceptional learning experience that will make them become independent critical thinkers ready to carry on careers in the field of Social Sciences particularly Political Science and Public Administration. In this regard, the Department provide competitive quality education, training and research through matching skills to meet market demands. The Department emphasizes the training of ethical and technologically proficient Political Scientists and Public Administration professionals who can positively impact society. The focus is on ensuring students grow to become informed, responsible, creative, and critical thinkers capable of participating broadly in a diverse and rapidly changing dynamic world by doing different program activities. The Department utilizes diverse modes of teaching and learning within the University quality assurance framework. The Department underscores the importance of raising the quality and stature of the Department to a position of academic leadership in teaching and learning, research, scholarship etc.; to situate ourselves in the national and international links with other academic institutions’ departments to foster global competitiveness in education of higher institutions of learning. At the Department, we are very keen to liaise and network with undergraduate and postgraduate students, academic staff and potential partners for collaboration in areas of Research, Teaching and Learning as well other undertakings that benefit society. The department has a vibrant Political Science and Public Administration Students Association which brings together students in the Department to nurture and share their thoughts.
The department promotes critical analysis of interrelated political and socio-economic phenomena, especially related to categorizations of political theory, political economy, political methodology, good governance, organizational analysis, international relations, strategic security, diplomatic studies, the environment, civil society, resource management and power. To this end, our collective research advances pragmatic coverage of strategic areas of Ugandan politics, political behaviour, local governance, citizen competence, higher education, AU-EU relations, gender and politics, transitional justice, indigenous research, food production politics and resource politics perspectives. Significantly, most departmental and individual research is guided by central themes in Sustainable Development Goals, Uganda’s National Development Plan, good governance, natural resource utilization and gender equity themes.
Again, through teaching and research in politics and policy practice, we promote effective and ethical mastery of real-world politics and empirical methodologies with special highlights in advances in digital governance at the grassroots. These specializations constitute the strength of the department as a scholarly unit that promotes greater understanding of societal political and general governance phenomena. Together as an academic unit in this strategic academic unit of which I have the honour to be the founding head, I am encouraged by my departmental peers, our students, partners and robust faculty leadership to deliver quality education services. I am equally inspired by the ways in which we work individually and as a department to effectively deliver on the departmental mandate as scholars.
Lastly, I invite you to our departmental web pages to learn more about the opportunities we offer as potential partners in research, teaching, students’ field internship training and research collaborations in relation to PhD, Masters and our undergraduate academic programmes.