Policing Uganda, Policing the World

Abstract

This essay examines the Ugandan police by combining approaches from political science, sociology and anthropology. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda the essay draws a detailed picture from inside the police force and examines the everyday practices of the police, their bureaucratic dimensions and their relations with the Ugandan public. Following John Dewey’s understanding of adaptation, the essay argues that the Ugandan police cannot be seen as a product to external standards. The main thesis here is that the police in Uganda are a highly self-referential institution, embedded in a local context and a global policing code of self-representation.