For this month’s “What We’re Reading” post, the RESOLVE Network team is highlighting research that explores concepts related to governance, ideas, individuals, and violence in the country of Nigeria. The articles and reports presented below illustrate the various elements that characterize conditions in the Nigerian state, and provide useful information on subtopics ranging from the factors motivating individual recruitment into violent groups in Nigeria, to individual reactions to and perceptions of violent groups and the Nigerian state, to the nature and role of both formal and informal security actors that operate within the country. Click the links below to view the documents.

Governance 

Nigeria: The Challenge of Military Reform. International Crisis Group, June 2016. https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/237-nigeria-the-challenge-of-military-reform.pdf 

Lewis, Peter, and Darren Kew. “Nigeria’s Hopeful Election.” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 3 (2015): 94-109. http://www.journalofdemocracy.org/article/nigeria%E2%80%99s-hopeful-election 

Milligan, Maren. “Fighting for the Right to Exist: Institutions, Identity, and Conflict in Jos, Nigeria.” Comparative Politics 45, no. 3 (2013): 313-34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43664323?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents 

Ogbozor, Ernest. Understanding the Informal Security Sector in Nigeria. U.S. Institute of Peace, September 2016. http://www.usip.org/publications/2016/09/15/understanding-the-informal-security-sector-in-nigeria 

Ideas 

Deckard, Natalie Delia, Atta Barkindo, and David Jacobson. “Religiosity and Rebellion in Nigeria: Considering Boko Haram in the Radical Tradition.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 7 (2015): 510-28. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1057610X.2015.1022443?journalCode=uter20 

Oriola, Temitope B.“‘Unwilling Cocoons’: Boko Haram’s War against Women.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (May 2016): 1-23. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1057610X.2016.1177998?journalCode=uter20 

Pantucci, Raffaello, and Sasha Jesperson. From Boko Haram to Ansaru: The Evolution of Nigerian Jihad. RUSI, April 2015. https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/boko-haram-ansaru-evolution-nigerian-jihad 

Thurston, Alex. ‘The Disease is Unbelief’: Boko Haram’s Religious and Political Worldview. Brookings Institution, January 2016. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-disease-is-unbelief-boko-harams-religious-and-political-worldview/ 

Individuals

Motivations and Empty Promises: Voices of Former Boko Haram Combatants and Nigerian Youth. Mercy Corps, April 2016. https://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/motivations-and-empty-promises-voices-former-boko-haram-combatants-and-nigerian 

Iwilade, Akin. “Networks of Violence and Becoming: Youth and the Politics of Patronage in Nigeria’s Oil-Rich Delta.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 52, no. 4 (2014): 571-95. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/networks-of-violence-and-becoming-youth-and-the-politics-of-patronage-in-nigerias-oil-rich-delta/78DA8815C0E0626C7A828606416EE3F8 

Langer, Arnim, Amélie Godefroidt, and Bart Meuleman. “Killing People, Dividing a Nation? Analyzing Student Perceptions of the Boko Haram Crisis in Nigeria.” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism (July 2016): 1-20. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1057610X.2016.1214434?needAccess=true&journalCode=uter20 

Violence 

Curbing Violence in Nigeria (III): Revisiting the Niger Delta. International Crisis Group. September 2015. https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/curbing-violence-nigeria-iii-revisiting-niger-delta 

A. Falode, J. “The Nature of Nigeria’s Boko Haram War, 2010-2015: A Strategic Analysis.” Perspectives on Terrorism 10, no. 1 (2016): 41-52. http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/488 

Koos, Carlo, and Jan Pierskalla. “The Effects of Oil Production and Ethnic Representation on Violent Conflict in Nigeria: A Mixed-Methods Approach.” Terrorism and Political Violence (January 2015): 888-911. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546553.2014.962021