Departures With Robert Amsterdam

Yoweri Museveni's 35 years of iron-gripped ruthless authoritarianism in Uganda did not take place in a vacuum. It has instead been a years-long process of converting the country's institutions into instruments of arbitrary power, which has been fueled by a series of targeted moves to destabilize the social coordination that would be needed to hold leadership accountable. This has been the fascinating focus of research for Prof. Rebecca Tapscott, a visiting fellow at the University of Edinburgh's Politics and International Relations Department. She joined the Departures with Robert Amsterdam podcast this week to discuss her book, "Arbitrary States: Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni's Uganda." Tapscott explains that for Uganda, among other countries with nationalist movements which took power, it is crucial that there is a high level of "unpredictability and arbitrariness" which shapes people's experience of how the state works, how they experience security and justice. Her research takes a