institution, favor “democracy” or not?) instead of letting emic meanings and unexpected consequences emerge from the field. Political action is analyzed only against this dual, univocal grid and not according to alternative, autonomous logics or social dynamics that might explain behaviors or outcomes in a different way, rather than just as the result of a great confrontation between forces that are fundamentally repressive versus forces that would be fundamentally liberal.11
We know, however, that power relationships are more ambivalent: rulers are also ruled, and the ruled can be oppressors.12 If we follow Foucault, forms of agency can emerge within or even from situations of submission.13 Consent is not univocal and total: It can be given to one aspect of political rule and not to others. It can mix support, criticism, and fear. Languages of authority, the politics of control, and even state violence sometimes appear legitimate to some.14 There is a “vast range of relationships to authority” that needs to be described and understood and that cannot be encompassed in a dualist framework.15
As Béatrice Hibou has shown, in situations labeled as authoritarian, the mechanics of domination also involve forces and dynamics that cannot be reduced only to the state, and actions or phenomena that might contribute to reinforcing a certain political hierarchy, but not necessarily intentionally.16 Even in contexts of strong political pressure and violence, people also act according to rationalities, interests, and agendas that do not necessarily intend to oppress or resist. The routine politics of violence and its negotiation, in particular, need to be taken into account; for instance, the interaction between a local police officer and the radio reporter working on a story, whereby both act according to a variety of distinct and local interests and rationalities. As we will see in detail, people might consent, desire, or submit to a certain social order that reinforces patterns of political domination while not necessarily supporting the regime.
A dichotomist framework cannot encompass this social thickness: these intertwined yet distinct rationalities, belongings, and historicities. Such a framework impoverishes the social experience of domination, the ways in which people live and interpret politics. This is obviously not to say that some people—indeed, many people—in Uganda do not suffer and pay a great price for defending the right to act or to speak as they wish, nor to minimize their effort, pain, or sacrifice. On the contrary, this book seeks to highlight and analyze the complex and manifold social implications of their struggle.
Understanding the Production of Media Speech beyond Normative Yardsticks
These nuances are all the more important to mention, as the apparent contradiction between the existence in Uganda of a vibrant and sometimes very critical media scene and the regular recourse to the coercion of journalists is often pointed out as the perfect embodiment of the “paradoxical” nature of semiauthoritarianism.17
Beyond the specific case of Uganda, treatment of the media is often used as a yardstick to evaluate how “free” and “democratic” a political system is.18 The literature on the media in Africa has been particularly marked by this normative dimension.19 News outlets are often assessed according to how strongly they contribute to (or jeopardize) peace, development, and democracy. But this clearly does not do justice to the wealth of actions and representations by media professionals in these contexts.20 Indeed, the daily elaboration of media discourses illustrates particularly well the ambivalence and social thickness mentioned above.
Insisting on the ambivalence of the position of the media toward the state obviously does not mean denying how Ugandan journalists are exposed to multiple repressive acts on a day-to-day basis. These acts range from distressing threats and intimidation to traumatizing beatings, violent police searches, recurrent arrests, exhausting legal proceedings, and the like. They occur in particular when journalists reveal cases of corruption, or when they cover military operations, the first family, electoral fraud, or street protests. The valuable publications of the Human Rights Network for Journalists—Uganda give precise and gruesome details of these acts, and the aim of this book is not to paraphrase this very rich source.21 It is enough here to state that even if they mainly rely on self-reporting by victims (which means that estimates are probably low because of the very routine character of threats), these reports show an expansion in the acts of repression since the end of the 2000s, in a context of the normalization of torture used against opponents and suspects; of growing illegal, close-range electronic surveillance; and the complete impunity of the security services.22 Many Ugandan journalists describe a rise in repression and the systemic hostility of police and army against the media, especially when covering street protests and electoral campaigns. In 2009, the official response to the so-called “Buganda riots” was an important milestone in the repression of media speech, involving the closure of four radio stations and the ban of the ebimeeza. In 2011 and 2012, the coverage of the “Walk to Work” protests, organized by an opposition coalition against the cost of living, was particularly risky and difficult. Beyond these spectacular moments, political and business elites routinely use varied means to influence media speech. Journalists often mention in interviews how political pressure can take direct as well as indirect roads, especially through editors in chief, who can act both as fuses and conductors of repression. Pressure is also exerted by newspaper owners and advertisers. Criticizing the idea that there is a fundamental antagonism between media and state power does not mean that there are no power relations between the two, nor is such criticism understating the very real risks media workers take when expressing themselves. On the contrary, such criticism should lead to a better understanding of these risks and constraints.
Several methodological precautions need to be taken when it comes to analyzing repression and more precisely understanding the parameters of political rule. Repression originates from a great variety of sources. It is not systematic and can be attributed to several variables, though it is not anomic or random. It can be analyzed and trends can be interpreted to understand the kind of speech state elites are ready to tolerate and the means they have to implement limits, as well as their relationships with media workers and with other state agents.
Journalists suffer and respond to repression in diverse ways according to their resources, their positions within the newsroom, their social and political trajectories, and especially the links they might have with state elites, as well as their political ideas. They can put together protection and negotiation strategies, and more or less have leverage with the authorities. The daily process of negotiation does not exclude the use of violence; far from it. Links with state officials can be a source of pressure and protection.23 Previous friendships from school or church, the politics of exile, or sharing the experience of fighting in the Bush War that led Museveni to power between 1981 and 1986 does not completely prevent coercion. But these dynamics can attenuate it, while at the same time being a source of political and psychological pressure. A media worker may, for instance, be warned of an imminent arrest, or of the hostility of a particular official.24 Compliance and criticism are often closely intertwined. Sociologists have shown that the revelation of big scandals by the press, for example, is not a sign of detachment and autonomy, but rather a sign of the intensity of the relationships between media and state (via the access to good sources within it).25 As mentioned, the state is a competitive arena, where officials, as anywhere in the world, strategically use leaks to reach their objectives. Media workers and state officials have mutual interests in being close and interconnected.26
The daily bargaining between criticism and pressure leads to different kinds of compromise: for instance, the use of anonymity, the decisions made by journalists regarding whether or not to publish information, to push back the date of publication, to pass over information deemed too dangerous to foreign NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) or news outlets, or to get in touch directly and privately with state officials to raise an issue of concern.27 Some topics and official events are covered as a gesture of good faith toward state officials, with the goal that more controversial articles will be tolerated.28 Actually, newspaper pages can be read as palimpsests of such negotiations. The layout itself may reflect this, as one editor in
