Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines public attitudes and participation in the Niger Delta of Nigeria, a major site of contentious ethnic mobilization and conflict. The data is drawn from three Afrobarometer surveys, providing a time series from a large and uniquely representative sample of citizens from the Delta region. There are three preliminary findings, based upon descriptive statistics and partial event analysis. The pattern of attitudes in Niger Delta, when situated within events, is consonant with constructivist accounts of identity formation. Subjective identities are volatile, and shifts in identity can be explained with reference to political opportunities and economic inducements. Second, with regard to the discourse of grievance in the Niger Delta, parochial ethnic identities are predominant, rather than an overarching regional identity. Ethnic identities are animated by a combination of political challenges and economic interests. Third, regime type does not adequately account for changes in identity and behavior. Democratic governance can reduce communal polarization when the political system furnishes desired collective goods. When citizens perceive that the system has failed to provide essential political or economic goods, they are more likely to gravitate to communal identities and to pursue contentious mobilization.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Is resource scarcity more likely to explain conflict onset and resource abundance more likely to explain conflict duration? Do the underlying dynamics of civil conflict differ when both scarcity- and abundance-related causes co-exist? Research on the micro-foundations of rebellion has singularly focused on resource abundance as a causal factor, exploring the conditions under which natural resources and their spatial distribution influence the dynamics of civil conflict between rebel movements and host governments. This paper extends research on the resource-conflict link, by explicitly incorporating the scarcity dimension. As such, I focus on Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region, a case which both embodies resource abundance—the large oil wealth of the region which generates over $10b in yearly revenue for the country—and resource scarcity—environmental devastation in the form of oil spills, gas fires, global warming, soil and water pollution, as well as the resulting competition for basic sustenance and public goods. In addition to defying the largely artificial ‘abundance versus scarcity’ distinction in the literature, the case also maps the complexity of underlying conflict—conflict between local communities, ethnic groups, insurgents, and the government—which has led to the emergence of new social cleavages, the deepening of existing cleavages, and the remapping of identity and concomitant rights.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: New Tuareg rebel movements emerged in Mali and Niger in 2006-2007, each supported by official blogs. This paper explores the different roles of the blogs in the context of relatively soft (Mali) and hard (Niger) government responses.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The era of globalization has created a context where
state authority has been undercut and local forces have been empowered.
In Africa, the reduction in authoritarian regimes and the emergence of
globalization and democratization worked to reveal cleavages along
ethnic and religious lines. At the same time, the global economy and
structural adjustment reforms have created dramatic economic
disparities between and within African nations that are historically
linked in ethnic and cultural ways. West Africa experienced some of
these tumultuous changes and some of them can be attributed to the
instability associated with democratic reform in regions that have had
very little experience with the concept. Regional integration in West
Africa has been heavily debated topic due to the wide range of
institutional, legal and infrastructural barriers that divide the
countries that comprise the sub-region. Massive profit making
opportunities are salient in instances where economic and political
disparities between neighboring countries are present. It is oftentimes
profit making opportunities by political elites that fuel opposition to
the cause for regional integration.
The application of Shari’a (Islamic law) in the Hausa region of
Northern Nigeria has dramatically changed the quotidian life in the
region. In an attempt to eliminate what is determined to be societal
ills, some states have adopted Shari’a and subsequently outlawed
activities such as drinking, prostitution and gambling in addition to
less controversial habitudes such as praise singing and integration of
the sexes in public places. The neighboring country of Niger, which has
a large Hausa population as well, has, by contrast, been reticent to
base its legal codes on Qur’anic law, which is due in large part to the
political legacy of the French colonial government. Niger’s reluctance
to mimic Northern Nigeria’s lead has rendered it a safe haven for
Nigeria’s outlawed vices and as bars, brothels and informal casinos
were shut down in Nigeria, the same establishments were opened in
Niger. The activities that have been transferred across the border to
Niger have provided a made a substantial economic impact on Niger’s
border towns. The movement of illicit activities from Nigeria to Niger
serves to demonstrate a case of counter regional integration. Rather
than bringing together the two states it forces them further apart.
Niger ostensibly uses its status as a secular state as a comparative
economic advantage vis a vis a the religious reform carried out in
Nigeria. This paper will examine how changes in regional Nigerian
politics have had a profound on politics and the economy of Niger. The
paper will also look at how the changes in Niger have brought about a
strengthening of neo-patrimonialism in instances where rent-seeking
possibilities arise.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the relationship between ethnic minority politics and Nigerian nationhood in the context of the struggles for power over the oil-rich lands and waters of the Niger Delta. This conflict has recently assumed insurgent proportions where armed ethnic militias are violently challenging the ownership claims of the Nigerian state (in partnership with foreign oil firms) to the oil extracted from the region. Apart from challenging the legitimacy and territorial sovereignty of the Nigerian state, the counter-claims of ownership of the oil by the ethnic minorities that inhabit the Niger Delta also pose a locally based sovereignty claim against a centralizing nation-state logic, and global market hegemony. The study also locates Nigeria's sovereignty in the context of globalised oil relations represented by the oil multinationals (in partnership with the Nigerian state) and global industrialised powers whose energy security interests are embedded in the Niger Delta oilfields. In conclusion, the paper examines the challenges that the emerging inequities and trans-global intersections of conflict embedded in the Niger Delta pose, both for the nation-state question, and Africa's post-Cold war international relations.