We hold many assumptions about police work—that it is the responsibility of the state, or that
police officers are given the right to kill in the name of public safety or self-defense. But in …

Vigilantism is theoretically and empirically important for political science, because it is
closely related to core concepts like power, order, state-building, and collective action. Yet …

The practice of vigilantism raises a number of broader provocative questions regarding state–
society relations. But before pursuing these questions, we must first ask a critical conceptual …

In recent years, scholars of authoritarianism have noted a trend in which institutions
designed to check arbitrary power have been hollowed out to facilitate its exercise. As they …

This article introduces a collection of papers that treat the question of governance in
conditions of protracted crises in Subsahara Africa. Contrary to the widespread belief that …

Within the literature, there is growing concern about how competitive politics are contributing
to electoral violence in Africa. The focus of scholars has been on large‑scale organized …

South Africa boasts the largest private security sector in the entire world, reflecting deep
anxieties about violence, security, and governance. Twilight Policing is an ethnographic …

Policing is undergoing rapid change in Africa as a result of democratization, the
commercialization of security, conflicts that disrupt policing services, and peace negotiations …

Often overlooked by journalists and scholars, the police forces of the African continents are a
significant and little-studied phenomenon. This book seeks to redress that lacuna. The …

This paper uses a systematic literature review to suggest that three emerging critical
approaches to the production of public authority are identifiable within the contemporary …