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THUGS, SPIES AND VIGILANTES: COMMUNITY POLICING AND STREET POLITICS IN INNER CITY ADDIS ABABA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 July 2014

Marco Di Nunzio
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Abstract

The implementation of community policing schemes and development programmes targeting street youth in inner city Addis Ababa, intended to prevent crime and unrest, has resulted in an expansion of structures of political mobilization and surveillance of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the party that has ruled the country since 1991. Yet the fact that the government managed to implement its programmes does not imply that the ruling party was entirely successful in tackling ordinary crime as well as political dissent. As neighbourhoods continued to be insecure, especially at night, the efficacy of the ruling party's politicized narratives on community policing and crime prevention was questioned. An appreciation of the shortcomings of government action on the streets of the inner city raises questions about the extent of the reach of the EPRDF's state into the grass roots of urban society as well as about the ways in which dissent is voiced in a context where forms of political surveillance and control are expanding. This paper investigates these issues in order to contribute to the study of the Ethiopian state and to the broader debate on community policing and crime prevention on the African continent.

Résumé

La mise en œuvre de programmes de police communautaire et de développement visant les jeunes des rues du centre d'Addis Ababa, destinée à prévenir la criminalité et les troubles, a conduit à un essor des structures de mobilisation politique et de surveillance du parti au pouvoir depuis 1991 en Éthiopie, l'EPRDF (Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front). Or, le fait que le Gouvernement soit parvenu à mettre ces programmes en œuvre ne signifie pas pour autant que le parti au pouvoir a réussi à juguler la criminalité ordinaire et la dissidence politique. Face à la persistance de la criminalité dans les quartiers, notamment la nuit, l'efficacité des propos politisés du parti au pouvoir sur la police communautaire et la prévention de la criminalité a été mise en question. Le manque d'efficacité constaté de l'action gouvernementale sur les rues des quartiers pauvres du cœur de la ville soulève des questions sur la capacité de l’État à toucher les couches populaires de la société urbaine, ainsi que sur les modes d'expression de la dissidence dans un contexte d'expansion des formes de surveillance politique et de contrôle. Cet article examine ces questions pour contribuer à l’étude de l’État éthiopien et au débat plus large sur la police communautaire et la prévention de la criminalité sur le continent africain.

Type
Policing communities
Information
Africa , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , August 2014 , pp. 444 - 465
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2014 

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