What implications do the diversification of policing agencies have for state sovereignty? This Africkaspectrum article explores who is authorising and delivering policing beyond the state police in urban Sierra Leone and Uganda. It finds that, on the basis of the state’s ability to maintain a monopoly of the use of legitimate violence in providing law and order, sovereignty is fragmented within the two countries. No single policing authority necessarily has exclusive control within a certain social space, but may compete and overlap with other authorities.
The fragmentation of policing has been observed worldwide, although in Africa the state police are particularly weak. Considering security from the perspective of citizens in urban Africa reveals the fluidity of policing, with citizens ‘shopping around’ for their security needs. Research found that the state had a variable relationship with policing agencies. Three broad categories were explored: policing agencies initiated and regulated by the state; those approved by the state, but initiated by others; and those unauthorised and unregulated by the state.
In Sierra Leone and Uganda civil war severely disrupted state policing and led to profound alterations in internal security. Differences in history and regime background go some way to explaining the different patterns of policing that have emerged:
- In Uganda the introduction during the war of Local Council Level One (LC1s), with wide-ranging law-enforcement responsibilities, forestalled an initial security power vacuum.
- In Sierra Leone the law-enforcement vacuum has frequently been filled by policing authorised and provided by the youth. This may explain the greater prevalence of mob justice in Sierra Leone.
- Community policing panels have been encouraged by the state police in both countries to provide intelligence and assist in crime prevention.
- In Uganda the use of military anti-crime units has been overt; less so in Sierra Leone.
- Market traders’ and taxi drivers’ associations, providing crime prevention and punishment within their spheres of activity, are common in both countries.
- Commercial security companies, although licensed by the state, are subject to limited regulation or oversight and rarely work with state police.
In reality Sierra Leone and Uganda cannot provide universal protection without the assistance of other policing providers:
- Fragmented policing is securing, to different degrees of effectiveness and permanence, variable social orders within single state territories.
- The choice available is not simply between accountable public policing and minimally accountable private policing. For Africans policing choices are based on availability, effectiveness and affordability.
- In order to protect themselves citizens in Sierra Leone and Uganda have entered into a variety of social contracts with sovereign security providers. Their authority is based on the consent of the community and their ability to provide effective protection.
- There is no simple state/non-state divide. The state may shape and influence policing agencies through a range of techniques – sponsorship, regulation, criminalisation, exclusion, incorporation and training – and seek to uphold its sovereignty.
- States need to regulate and coordinate all those willing to preserve law and order within the constitutional and legislative order established by the elected government.
- To concede that the state is not the only provider of crime control is a less ambitious definition of sovereignty, but it is sustainable.
