Solidarity with a sharp edge: Communal conflict and local collective action in rural Nigeria

Max Schaub ()
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Max Schaub: European University Institute, Italy

No 183, HiCN Working Papers from Households in Conflict Network

Abstract: This paper provides new insights into the link between the experience of violent conflict and local collective action. I use the temporal and geographical information from four rounds of survey data from Nigeria to relate measures of cooperation to past and future incidences of communal conflict. I show that local collective action, measured in terms of community meeting attendance and volunteering, is highest before the outbreak of vio-lence ï¿½ higher than both post-conflict levels and the generally lower levels of cooperation in regions not affected by violence. I develop a ï¿½mobilisation mechanismï¿½ to explain these findings, arguing that, rather than being an indicator of ï¿½social capitalï¿½, collective action ahead of communal violence is inherently ambiguous, and driven by a form of situational-ly adaptive (and potentially aggressive) ï¿½solidarity with an edgeï¿½. I further show that the positive link between previous exposure to civil war-type violence and cooperation holds for Nigeria, too, but that it holds for rural areas only.

Keywords: violent conflict; collective action; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2014-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-cdm, nep-evo and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hic:wpaper:183

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