Abstract

This study examined political parties’ ideologies influencing public policy formulation in Uganda’s nascent hydrocarbon industry. The study followed the four research objectives, research questions and hypotheses. The researcher applied a descriptive cross-sectional survey research design to guide the study. The research adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches and data was collected from 218 respondents. The researcher collected both quantitative and qualitative data which was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and thematic content analysis, respectively. The findings of the study have shown that political ideology contributes to public policy formulation in Uganda’s nascent hydrocarbon industry by 20.7% and it is significant (P=0.000). It can be concluded that political parties’ ideology is an important determinant to public policy formulation. It is recommended that government should ensure the question of ideology is handled from primary education level to university because it is a key factor in public policy formulation. The government should re-introduce civic education in primary schools and political education in secondary and tertiary institutions.

Key words: Ideology, political parties, public policy formulation, hydrocarbons.