Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the politicisation of community policing initiatives in urban Tanzania and the way in which localised political competition over policing intersects with generational conflicts.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the shifting relationship between local policing and party politics in urban Tanzania. Contemporary 'community policing' initiatives form part of a long history of government, or ruling party, attempts to promote citizen responsibility for local security, notably through the co-optation of sungusungu vigilante organisations in the 1980s and early 1990s. Popular participation in sungusungu in urban areas was largely predicated upon the capacity of the ruling party to enforce compliance and its tolerance of the violent methods employed by sungusungu. Contemporary local government institutions retain some capacity to oblige residents to contribute labour or material resources to local policing activities and are largely able to determine the objectives of community policing, often at the expense of 'idle' youth who are deemed a threat to public order. However, in today's multiparty context local leaders face considerable difficulties in sustaining participation, partly due to the extent to which community policing, like other local development projects, is highly politicised. Attempts to introduce community policing and improve neighbourhood safety are often perceived as a strategy to increase the popularity of the ruling party and thus obstructed by supporters of opposition parties who argue that the state should be responsible for providing security. Localised conflicts over community policing also have a generational character, as young people, who are more likely to support opposition parties, also challenge their historical obligation to contribute to local development and resent the increased powers assumed by local leaders through community policing.