Individuals want peace and security. One of the most important aspects of security for individuals as they navigate their relationship with the state is having a sense of certainty. Clear expectations and a path to navigate the challenges of everyday life, not to mention political challenges, are essential for public security.
In Arbitrary States, Rebecca Tapscott shows how dictators under modern authoritarianism undermine citizens’ security and ability to engage in collective action by trading off certainty for arbitrary governance. Tapscott’s primarily empirical evidence comes from northern Uganda; however, she also considers alternative explanations for institutional arbitrariness, exploring sub-national variations in three additional regions of Uganda. Regionally, she also provides suggestive evidence that her theory generalizes to other non-democracies including Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. More broadly, she opens up the possibility that a theory of arbitrary governance might even explain patterns of police abuse and democratic erosion for cases such as the USA.
While her theoretical insights generalize beyond the case of Uganda, one of the strengths of the book is its rigorous study of the micro-dynamics of violence and governance in Uganda. Deftly incorporating ten months of qualitative field research on Uganda’s informal security actors, Tapscott grounds her theoretical framework of institutionalized arbitrariness with extensive, empirically rich interviews. The study is an exceptional example of a scholar who, rather than assuming away the complexities of a case, was inspired to pursue an inductive theory-building project to answer a more complex set of questions than those she initially set out to answer. The outcome of this project is not only a compelling study of modern-day Uganda but also a much-needed theoretical intervention about how everyday individuals self-police and navigate the precarity of life under authoritarianism.
By identifying a new form of modern authoritarianism – arbitrary governance – Tapscott shows how dictators may focus more on weakening political opponents rather than on maximizing control. Tapscott’s theoretical rich and nuanced understanding of the relationship between community, security institutions and the state explains the often paradoxical nature and role of unpredictability and uncertainty within modern authoritarianism. To Tapscott, uncertainty is a feature of authoritarian control used by the regime to weaken political opponents, not a bug to be assumed away.
Tapscott draws on the case of Uganda and the dictatorship of Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party to explore the logic of her theory. In particular, she pays close attention to institutional arbitrariness within Uganda’s security sector. With a focus on the Ugandan Police Force, local vigilante groups and the implementation of the Crime Preventers Policy, she outlines what she refers to as the oppositions of institutional arbitrariness: ‘1) the use of lawful versus exceptional violence; 2) the state’s defined jurisdictional claim versus lack thereof; 3) state presence versus state absence; and 4) state fragmentation versus state consolidation’ (p. 30). Rather than institutionalized arbitrariness occurring through happenstance, Tapscott argues that rulers create the four conditions necessary for it: ‘1) the state’s capacity for overwhelming and unaccountable violence; 2) a fluid state jurisdiction; 3) potential state presence; and 4) non-hierarchical and fragmented governing institutions’ (p. 32).
However, a core challenge to her theory of arbitrary governance and the uncertainty of state intervention in the everyday life of Ugandans is a fundamental conceptual question of what Tapscott means by ‘the state’. Clearly, the state is more than President Museveni and the ruling incumbent NRM party; however, the political logic behind why and when Museveni and other authorities deploy arbitrary governance is underexplored. What, if any, are the political costs that Museveni faces for relying on such tactics? Clearly, there are costs for individuals – especially for those who wish to challenge the regime – but why do everyday citizens put up with this arrangement and, perhaps even more puzzling, cooperate with it?
When do the vigilante groups that Tapscott studies, such as the unemployed men who monitor local crime, emerge from within communities? When do they form on behalf of the ruling elites? Who are the actors pulling the strings within the capricious dynamics she lays out in this framework? Without an elite-level analysis of the intent and political logic of arbitrary governance, some of these questions remain unanswered. To be sure, Museveni and the NRM have consolidated their control over Uganda since 1986; however, whether this strategy will be successful moving forward is unclear.
