Dr Rebecca Tapscott
- Senior Lecturer in International Relations (Political & International Studies)
Biography
Rebecca Tapscott is a political scientist whose work studies how authoritarian power is produced and contested. Her main research interests include how the state produces and projects political power; the relationship between gender, citizenship, and state authority; and how these processes can be studied ethically—as well as the politics of how these determinations is made. Her work has focused largely on Uganda, with a broader interest how these processes unfold in the so-called “global South”. Rebecca is the author of "Arbitrary States: Social control and modern authoritarianism in Museveni's Uganda" (Oxford University Press, 2021).
Before joining Glasgow in 2024, Rebecca held a post-doc and then an Ambizione Research Fellowship at the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy (2017-2023), and then a Lecturer at York from 2023-24. Rebecca has also held Visiting Fellowships at the London School of Economics, Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa and at the University of Edinburgh’s Politics and International Relations Department. She holds a PhD from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She is a recipient of the Fletcher School’s Alfred Rubin Prize in International Law (2011) and the International Studies Association’s Carl Beck award for innovative research on emergent international concerns (2017).
Rebecca is a member of the UK Young Academy (2024-2029). She is also the Reviews Editor at Civil Wars, an Associate Editor at Research Ethics, and a Board Member of the International Studies Review.
Rebecca is interested in supervising PhD studies working on authoritarianism, political violence, gender, and research ethics, especially from a critical perspective.
Research interests
- Authoritarianism
- Political violence
- Policing and vigilantism
- Gender, especially masculinities
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Research ethics and its regulation
Research groups
Publications
Prior publications
Article
Rebecca Tapscott, Daniel Rincón Machón (2024) Procedural ethics for social science research: Introducing the Research Ethics Governance dataset Crossref. (doi: 10.1177/00223433241249352)
Rebecca Tapscott, Eliza Urwin (2024) The Origins and Legacies of Unpredictability in Rebel-Incumbent Rule Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1743-968X (doi: 10.1080/13698249.2024.2302731)
Rebecca Tapscott, Daniel Rincón Machón (2023) 25 Years of Civil Wars: Identifying Key Developments Through the Reviews Section Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1743-968X (doi: 10.1080/13698249.2023.2253617)
Rebecca Tapscott, Daniel Rincón Machón (2023) Reviews, Otherwise: Introducing the New Reviews Section of Civil Wars Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1743-968X (doi: 10.1080/13698249.2023.2253618)
Anna Macdonald, Arthur Owor, Rebecca Tapscott (2023) Explaining youth political mobilization and its absence: the case of Bobi Wine and Uganda’s 2021 election Crossref. (doi: 10.1080/17531055.2023.2235661)
Rebecca Tapscott (2023) Vigilantes and the State: Understanding Violence through a Security Assemblages Approach Crossref. (doi: 10.1017/S1537592721001134)
Rebecca Tapscott (2021) How Insurgency Begins: Rebel Group Formation in Uganda and Beyond. By Janet I. Lewis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 300p. $99.99 cloth, $34.99 paper. Crossref. (doi: 10.1017/S1537592721000347)
Rebecca Tapscott (2020) Militarized masculinity and the paradox of restraint: mechanisms of social control under modern authoritarianism Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1468-2346 (doi: 10.1093/ia/iiaa163)
Francis Abonga, Raphael Kerali, Holly Porter, Rebecca Tapscott (2020) Naked Bodies and Collective Action: Repertoires of Protest in Uganda’s Militarised, Authoritarian Regime Crossref. (doi: 10.1080/13698249.2020.1680018)
Rebecca Tapscott (2018) Policing men: militarised masculinity, youth livelihoods, and security in conflict‐affected northern Uganda Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1467-7717 (doi: 10.1111/disa.12274)
Rebecca Tapscott (2017) The Government Has Long Hands: Institutionalized Arbitrariness and Local Security Initiatives in Northern Uganda Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1467-7660 (doi: 10.1111/dech.12294)
Rebecca Tapscott (2017) Local security and the (un)making of public authority in Gulu, Northern Uganda Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1468-2621 (doi: 10.1093/afraf/adw040)
Rebecca Tapscott (2016) Where the wild things are not: crime preventers and the 2016 Ugandan elections Rebecca Tapscott. ISSN 1753-1063 (doi: 10.1080/17531055.2016.1272283)
Book Section
Rebecca Tapscott (2024) Institutionalized Arbitrariness as Autocratic Adaptability Rebecca Tapscott.
Book
Rebecca Tapscott (2021) Arbitrary States: Social Control and Modern Authoritarianism in Museveni's Uganda Rebecca Tapscott. ISBN 9780191889745 (doi: 10.1093/oso/9780198856474.001.0001)
Other
Rebecca Tapscott (2019) Conceptualizing Militias in Africa Rebecca Tapscott. ISBN 9780190228637 (doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.834)
Report
Rebecca Tapscott (2012) Understanding Breast “Ironing”: A Study of the Methods, Motivations, and Outcomes of Breast Flattening Practices in Cameroon Rebecca Tapscott.