IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/intare/v18y2015i2p164-181.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Relative deprivation and insurgency: What lessons from Nigeria’s flawed federalism?

Author

Listed:
  • Kiikpoye K. Aaron

Abstract

In the heyday of insurgency in Nigeria’s oil-rich but poor Niger Delta region, much scholarly effort was made to explain this conflict as being borne out of relative deprivation. This paper contests the logic of using relative deprivation as the cause, as opposed to the reconfiguration of power in Nigeria’s national politics. This has seen the emergence of a president from the once marginalized Niger Delta region and the resultant dynamics of post-conflict peace-building. We also examine the consequences of a return to peace in the Niger Delta, in spite of the failure of the Nigerian state and oil transnational corporations to address the grievances that were widely canvassed as the reasons for rebellion. I conclude that insurgency in Nigeria is spawned not so much by conditions of relative deprivation, as by the nature of Nigeria’s fundamentally flawed federalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Kiikpoye K. Aaron, 2015. "Relative deprivation and insurgency: What lessons from Nigeria’s flawed federalism?," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 18(2), pages 164-181, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:18:y:2015:i:2:p:164-181
    DOI: 10.1177/2233865915572168
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2233865915572168
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/2233865915572168?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jean-Paul Azam, 2001. "The Redistributive State and Conflicts in Africa," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 38(4), pages 429-444, July.
    2. Keefer,Philip & Loayza,Norman (ed.), 2008. "Terrorism, Economic Development, and Political Openness," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521887588.
    3. repec:pri:indrel:paxson_krueger_comment is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    5. Christina Paxson, 2002. "Comment on Alan Krueger and Jitka Maleckova, Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?," Working Papers 202, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Research Program in Development Studies..
    6. repec:fth:oxesaf:2001-3 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2000. "Greed and Grievance in Civil War," CSAE Working Paper Series 2000-18, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. Alan B. Krueger & Jitka Maleckova, 2003. "Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 119-144, Fall.
    9. Hale, Henry E., 2000. "The Parade of Sovereignties: Testing Theories of Secession in the Soviet Setting," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 31-56, January.
    10. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    11. repec:pri:indrel:paxson_krueger_comment.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Brancati, Dawn, 2006. "Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 60(3), pages 651-685, July.
    13. Iro Aghedo & Oarhe Osumah, 2012. "The Boko Haram Uprising: how should Nigeria respond?," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(5), pages 853-869.
    14. Cyril Obi, 2014. "Oil and the Post-Amnesty Programme (PAP): what prospects for sustainable development and peace in the Niger Delta?," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(140), pages 249-263, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul A. Onuh & Tochukwu J. Omenma & Chinedu J. Onyishi & Celestine U. Udeogu & Nelson C. Nkalu & Victor O. Iwuoha, 2021. "Artisanal refining of crude oil in the Niger Delta: A challenge to clean-up and remediation in Ogoniland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 36(6), pages 468-486, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    2. Gries, Thomas & Haake, Claus-Jochen, 2016. "An Economic Theory of 'Destabilization War' '- Compromise for Peace versus Conventional, Guerilla, or Terrorist Warfare," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145617, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Patricia Justino, 2009. "The Impact of Armed Civil Conflict on Household Welfare and Policy Responses," Research Working Papers 12, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
    4. Stoop, Nik & Verpoorten, Marijke & van der Windt, Peter, 2019. "Artisanal or industrial conflict minerals? Evidence from Eastern Congo," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 660-674.
    5. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2017. "A critical survey of the resource curse literature through the appropriability lens," CEPN Working Papers hal-01583559, HAL.
    6. Freytag, Andreas & Krüger, Jens J. & Meierrieks, Daniel & Schneider, Friedrich, 2011. "The origins of terrorism: Cross-country estimates of socio-economic determinants of terrorism," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(S1), pages 5-16.
    7. Axel Dreher & Merle Kreibaum, 2016. "Weapons of choice," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 53(4), pages 539-553, July.
    8. Benedikt Korf, 2006. "Functions of violence revisited: greed, pride and grievance in Sri Lanka’s civil war," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 109-122, April.
    9. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Within-group heterogeneity and civil war," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 153-177, May.
    10. Michael Jetter & Bei Li, 2017. "The Political Economy of Opposition Groups: Peace, Terrorism, or Civil Conflict," CESifo Working Paper Series 6747, CESifo.
    11. Dominic Rohner, 2010. "From rags to rifles: deprivation, conflict and the welfare state," IEW - Working Papers 463, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    12. Carolyn Chisadza & Matthew Clance, 2021. "Conflict heterogeneity in Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(4), pages 459-479, December.
    13. Rafat Mahmood & Michael Jetter, 2020. "Communications Technology and Terrorism," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(1), pages 127-166, January.
    14. Randall J. Blimes, 2006. "The Indirect Effect of Ethnic Heterogeneity on the Likelihood of Civil War Onset," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 50(4), pages 536-547, August.
    15. Ezcurra, Roberto & Palacios, David, 2016. "Terrorism and spatial disparities: Does interregional inequality matter?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 60-74.
    16. Bodea, Cristina & Higashijima, Masaaki & Singh, Raju Jan, 2016. "Oil and Civil Conflict: Can Public Spending Have a Mitigation Effect?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-12.
    17. Christopher Cramer, 2003. "Does inequality cause conflict?," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(4), pages 397-412.
    18. Isaac Kalonda Kanyama, 2017. "Patterns and trends in horizontal inequality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," WIDER Working Paper Series 151, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Christopher Gelpi & Nazli Avdan, 2018. "Democracies at risk? A forecasting analysis of regime type and the risk of terrorist attack," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(1), pages 18-42, January.
    20. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:intare:v:18:y:2015:i:2:p:164-181. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.hufs.ac.kr/user/hufsenglish/re_1.jsp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.