OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi OXFORD STUDIES IN AFRICAN POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS General Editors NIC CHEESEMAN, PEACE MEDIE, AND RICARDO SOARES DE OLIVEIRA OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi Oxford Studies in African Politics and International Relations is a series for scholars and students working on African politics and International Relations and related disciplines. Volumes concentrate on contemporary developments in African political science, political economy, and International Relations, such as electoral politics, democratization, decentralization, gender and political representation, the political impact of natural resources, the dynamics and consequences of conflict, comparative political thought, and the nature of the continent’s engagement with the East and West. Comparative and mixed methods work is particularly encouraged. Case studies are welcomed but should demonstrate the broader theoretical and empirical implications of the study and its wider relevance to contemporary debates. The focus of the series is on sub- Saharan Africa, although proposals that explain how the region engages with North Africa and other parts of the world are of interest. OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi Arbitrary States Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni’s Uganda REBECCA TAPSCOTT 1 OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Rebecca Tapscott 2021 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2021 Impression: 1 Some rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. This is an open access publication, available online and distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), a copy of which is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2021933370 ISBN 978–0–19–885647–4 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198856474.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work. OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi To my parents OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi Acknowledgements This book is a product of countless conversations, observations, exchanges of ideas, and encouragement that occurred over the better part of eight years. The book began as a PhD thesis, and the final manuscript owes a great deal to my supervisors. Alex de Waal, Dyan Mazurana, Jenny Aker, and Will Reno—each contributed substantially and uniquely to this project. Alex encouraged me to pursue interesting questions even when answers appeared elusive, and has con- tinued to patiently and generously engage with and support this project through its many iterations. Dyan’s attention to detail and thoughtful readings have critically developed and nuanced my work, in these pages and elsewhere. Jenny’s support and enthusiasm have been indispensable; her dual commitment to scientific inquiry and compassion continue to inspire me. I owe a special thanks to Will, who offered detailed comments on multiple versions of this manuscript, often articulating key aspects of my argument more clearly and concisely than I had been able to do myself. Will encouraged me to be ambitious and adventur- ous in my thinking, and continually pointed me toward the broader theoretical implications of my findings. The research would not have been possible without support of numerous donors. Fieldwork was supported by two research consortia—the Justice and Security Research Programme (JSRP, grant contract PO5729) and the Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID, reference number ES/P008038/1)—both funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development. I received additional funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation’s Special Programme for Security, Society and the State. JSRP and CPAID also offered me access to a bright and accomplished community of researchers studying authority, justice, and security in eastern Africa and beyond. Particular gratitude is owed to Tim Allen, who showed great faith in my potential as a young scholar, encouraging me to push forward on this project. Tim also helped me secure research funding that allowed me to return to Uganda over several years, and introduced me to the vibrant research community at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa at the London School of Economics. I also received funds from the Morris Abrahams Foundation and the Fletcher School that allowed me to attend conferences and supported additional fieldwork costs. Revisions on this manuscript took place at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where I was hosted at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy. The support of the Centre’s team was indispensable. Thank you to Shalini Randeria for welcoming me to the Centre, OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi viii and to Christine Lutringer for fostering a friendly and collaborative working environment. In Uganda, I was very lucky to meet and work with a diverse group of highly skilled researchers and scholars, each of whom brought their own perspectives and opinions to my project, and provided excellent company, valuable advice, moral and intellectual support, and encouragement in the field. I have opted not to include their names here out of what I hope is an abundance of caution for the possibility of a changing political environment. Most especially, I thank the many Ugandans who participated in this project. I hope they see their views reflected in these pages. Many other scholars have engaged with my ideas over the past five years, encouraging me to look at my questions and data in new ways. I cannot possibly name them all—a few people who were particularly generous with their time and thoughts include Rita Abrahamsen, Henni Alava, Cathy Boone, Adam Branch, Pierre Englebert, Julian Hopwood, Mette Lind Kusk, Gabrielle Lynch, Anna Macdonald, Dipali Mukhopadhyay, Dennis Rodgers, Nancy Rydberg, Philipp Schulz, Nora Stel, and Koen Vlassenroot. Others have offered incisive comments on parts of the text, including Jean-François Bayart, Jonathan Fisher, Jonathan Goodhand, Samuel Hickey, Ben Jones, Matthew Kandel, Keith Krause, Milli Lake, Didier Péclard, Holly Porter, Sungmin Rho, and Aidan Russell. I had opportunities to present this work and receive comments at the Conflict Research Group’s ‘Governance at the Edge of the State’ summer school in 2014, Northwestern University’s Program of African Studies Lecture Series in 2016, Uganda Elections Workshop hosted by Richard Vokes and Sam Wilkins in 2016, the Harvard-MIT-Tufts-Yale Political Violence Workshop in 2017, the Graduate Institute’s Political Science Faculty Seminar in 2018, as well as numerous inter- national conferences. The project further received valuable comments at two workshops that I co-organized on the politics of disorder—one at World Peace Foundation in 2017 and the other at the Democracy Centre in 2019. These workshops were generously funded by the World Peace Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Gerda Henkel Foundation. I owe a huge thanks to Nic Cheeseman, who has continually engaged with my ideas and encouraged me to be ambitious and bold in my endeavours. With Ricardo Soares de Oliveira and Dominic Byatt, Nic shepherded this project through the publishing process, and for that I am extremely thankful to all of them. The book also benefited from the insightful and constructively critical comments of three anonymous reviewers. Michelle Neiman and editors at Oxford University Press improved the prose with excellent editorial work. Parts of this book have appeared in journal articles: an early version of the argument appeared in an article in Development and Change; a version of the ethnographic vignette in Chapter 5 appears in an article OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi ix in African Affairs; and parts of Chapter 6 on crime preventers appear in an article in the Journal of Eastern African Studies. Most of all, my gratitude goes to friends and family whose belief that I would complete this book allowed me to do so: my husband and colleague, Deval Desai, joined me at the early stages of this project. His unflagging engagement has added depth and nuance to every page of this book. My parents, Susan Weinstein and Stephen Tapscott, and my sister, Leah, have unwaveringly supported and encour- aged my intellectual pursuits and aspirations. Finally, I thank the family that I have gained along the way—my son and my family-in-law—who have made my world bigger and my life fuller, and for whom I am immensely grateful. OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 17/5/2021, SPi Contents List of Figures xiii List of Tables xv List of Abbreviations xvii 1.