Fishing for Power: Incursions of the Ugandan Authoritarian State

Abstract

A few months before Uganda’s 2016 presidential elections, the government issued an executive order dissolving community-based Beach Management Units, the local and democratic governance bodies responsible for managing fishing activities. The official narrative cited rampant corruption and the exploitation of Uganda’s valuable fishing resources as justification for the suspension. A popular counternarrative, however—told in carrying whispers at fishing landing sites around Lake Victoria—painted the order as President Museveni’s attempt to secure votes during a tough presidential campaign. Drawing on seven months of ethnographic research on fisheries management in Uganda and critical studies on the nexus of coloniality, securitization, and common pool resource theories, this article analyzes sociopolitical narratives around fisheries governance a year before and after the presidential elections in Uganda. The author illustrates how recent policy changes in the country’s fisheries governance sector are underlined by a powerful narrative of peace and security and argues that the political intervention can be interpreted as efforts by the national government to secure the ruling elite’s increasingly authoritarian hold on state power. Key Words: authoritarianism, coloniality, fisheries governance, securitization, Uganda.