Historically, discussions of politics in Africa have focused on a desire to understand the concepts of state weakness and disorder seen to persist in the African state. Often this disorder is treated as unpredictable, without reason, and, ultimately, arbitrary. In Arbitrary States: Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni’s Uganda, Rebecca Tapscott moves us beyond Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg’s 1984 treatment of disorder, in which the arbitrariness of the African state is seen as an unfortunate byproduct of its colonial legacy. Tapscott instead introduces us to a theory of arbitrary governance that positions political disorder as institutionalized to achieve regime stability and project authoritarian power. Rather than inadvertent, Tapscott argues that institutionalized arbitrariness should be seen as a central strategy in the consolidation and propagation of authoritarian rule.

In Arbitrary States, Tapscott introduces the reader to the concepts of arbitrary governance and institutional arbitrariness. In her discussion, arbitrary “refers to a ruler’s unchecked and unaccountable power, exercised in such a way that those affected cannot predict or understand how power is wielded and have no means of questioning or challenging it” (p. 6). In Uganda, this arbitrariness can manifest in state support for vigilante groups, competing institutional arrangements that muddy questions of jurisdiction, and the delegation of state power to local and tribal authorities. Rather than a historically predetermined condition, Tapscott identifies “unpredictability as a key tool that helps today’s authoritarians maintain a balance between democratic institutions and arbitrary power” (p. 5). In this way, institutional arbitrariness becomes a “mode of governance through which the state produces a self-policing population that can be alternatively demobilized and remobilized” (p. 6), thereby helping hybrid regimes navigate the trappings of democracy while still maintaining control.

Tapscott uses the case of Uganda under Yoweri Museveni and the National Resistance Movement (NRM) party to illustrate and explore her theory. Drawing on dynamic and well-written vignettes, as well as extensive fieldwork in four sites across Uganda, Tapscott traces institutional arbitrariness in the Ugandan Police Force through the government creation and mobilization of local vigilante groups and within the state’s Crime Preventers policy. These institutions demonstrate Tapscott’s four components 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. In her discussion of local vigilante groups, for example, Tapscott traces a policy whereby unemployed men are called on by the state to assist in patrolling and monitoring violence and crime in their local communities. At times these groups are trained by the police force and offered material rewards for their service. At other times, however, the state turns on these groups, arresting or killing group members who are seen as extending their power too far beyond the bounds of permissible violence. The seeming arbitrariness of this relationship contributes to an environment in which the state simultaneously engages in lawful and exceptional violence, demonstrating both its presence and its absence.

Although the bulk of the evidence supporting Tapscott’s theory is drawn from northern Uganda, in one of the concluding chapters she probes alternative explanations for arbitrary governance in three other regions of Uganda. Specifically, Tapscott examines the impact of conflict legacy and political leanings on citizens’ perceptions of institutional arbitrariness. In all four research locations, Tapscott finds that arbitrary governance takes different forms, but the underlying strategy of control remains the same. In closing, Tapscott explores the notion of arbitrary governances in other African countries—Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe—and finds additional support for her theory. Furthermore, Tapscott takes small steps toward connecting her theory of arbitrary governance to regimes in democratic contexts, referencing President Trump’s use of unpredictability in foreign policy and the way in which police forces in the United States engage in arbitrary violence to repress minority populations.

Beyond the theoretical innovation of arbitrary governance, Tapscott offers an insightful book on the politics of Uganda itself. Helping stitch together competing explanations for the NRM’s rise and continued electoral success, Tapscott adjudicates between competing interpretations of state strength and weakness, and state reach and decentralization. Institutional arbitrariness threads the needle for Uganda scholars to help explain the rationale behind the seeming unpredictability of the Ugandan state coupled with the longevity of Museveni’s rule.

One of the great strengths of Arbitrary States lies in its engagement with community perceptions of arbitrary governance. Tapscott does an excellent job of engaging her detailed fieldwork and extensive interviews to substantiate her theoretical claims. The text includes long and descriptive quotes and stories from her respondents that center the voices of her interlocutors in the theory and narrative of the text. In addition to its contributions to our studies of state formation and authoritarian governance, the book serves as a model for theoretically informed, participant-focused field research.

Missing from the book is a direct engagement with the intent of the actors of the regime that engages in arbitrary governance. President Museveni, for example, is suspiciously missing as a central character in Tapscott’s narrative. Although she acknowledges early on that the intentionality of arbitrary governance is extremely difficult to ascertain, at times the reader is left questioning who is responsible for the bulk of the action in the narrative. The current regime is clearly benefiting from the system in places, but sometimes Tapscott seems to gloss over the very real tensions within the NRM and potential fragmentation within the regime itself. For Tapscott it is the “structure of the system itself [that] produces uncertainty among different authorities (p. 10),” but at times this claim seems to obscure the actors behind the scenes.

Moving forward from Tapscott’s findings is a call to more directly engage with how individuals resist authoritarian rule, specifically rule that is inherently unpredictable. For Tapscott, the state is not only “omnipresent, but actually embodied in Ugandan citizens” (p. 147), raising questions about the forms this resistance would and could take. In Tapscott’s telling, Museveni and the NRM have played a successful game in Uganda, engaging a broad network of regime informants and creating a culture of arbitrary violence that often leads to both fear and fatalism among Ugandan citizens. If this is the case, what options are left to challenge the regime? How do we overcome arbitrary governance to offer meaningful advances toward democratic aims? These are some of the important questions raised by this thoughtful and engaging book.