The current study aims to undertake an in-depth empirical comparative analysis of the reform programs in Uganda and Tanzania. It offers a single integrated work that analyses the development of the civil services systems, and the political and economic context that shaped this development. It addresses what accounts for success of the reforms in one country and failure in the other. The conceptual stance of this study is in agreement with Pollitt and Bouckaert (2000:2) that“management changes in the public sector cannot be satisfactorily understood as some set of free-floating, generic phenomena. Instead, they require to be interpreted as one element in a broader shift in the pattern of political problems and responses. In short, public management is always part of the broader agenda of public governance.”