Research project
Jihadist Governance in the Sahel
Events
In spite of concerted international and regional engagement to contain the spread of jihadist insurgencies, the security situation continues to deteriorate in West Africa’s Sahel region. This project analyses jihadist insurgent governance in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria.
Jihadist insurgents are usually considered to be "Islamist terrorists" who rule through brutal violence and who finance their activities through criminal networks. Rarely are they considered to ‘govern’. However, scattered evidence from the Sahel suggests that contrary to conventional wisdom, the picture is not so one-dimensional. Our ongoing research suggests that jihadist insurgents do govern, and the way they do so varies between groups. They may use coercion, provide minimal services like mobile courts, intervene strategically in rights-based conflicts over resources, and develop social bonds with communities.
We will undertake across and within-case comparison of a number of understudied jihadist insurgencies in the region. In doing so, we aim to challenge dominant narratives about jihadist insurgencies, and contribute to building a better evidence-base to inform policymakers and practitioners. Thus, our ambition is to significantly shift the state of the art on rebel governance.
JIGOV-Sahel will incorporate bottom-up perspectives from local communities through fieldwork and partnerships. Our findings will be carefully disseminated to a wide range of stakeholders, including local peacebuilding and development actors, policymakers, as well as to the general public in Norway, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria. We will produce a series of academic articles, policy briefs and organise seminars in policy and academic settings. Finally, we will develop a photo-essay and organise several exhibitions to share our findings to broader audiences.
Publications from project partners:
Niagalé Bagayoko (2022): 'Explaining the failure of internationally-supported defence and security reforms in Sahelian states', Conflict, Security & Development, 22:3, 243-269.
Related projects at NUPI:
Fragile states and violent entrepreneurs: conflict, climate, refugees (FRAGVENT)
Project Manager
Participants
New publications
L’architecture de sécurité intérieure burkinabé face à la gestion d’une crise multidimensionnelle
The military response has been the main focus to address the multidimensional crisis that the Sahel has been going through since 2012. However, it is equally important to look at the internal security forces' role in addressing insecurity. In this regard, Burkina Faso represents a particularly interesting field of lessons. Faced with the spillover of the Malian crisis on its soil and the emergence of endogenous violence, Burkina Faso is faced with substantial security challenges. Therefore, the country has been forced to rethink its approaches to defence policy, fight against terrorism and sub-regional security, and its conception of public security in a context where threats are now both local and external. Community policing has been placed at the core of Burkina Faso’s security approach.
Rebel governance? A literature review of Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province
The literature on rebel governance has fundamentally challenged the idea that ‘governance’ is the sole prerogative of ‘government’. Despite important advances over the past decade, studies have largely addressed rebel governance from an ‘institutionalist’ approach. This review seeks to go beyond an ‘institutionalist’ approach, by understanding ‘governance’ as the ‘whole set of practices and norms that govern daily life in a specific territory’. Drawing on a thorough review of literature on Boko Haram and the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), this working paper analyses five under-examined independent variables that shape rebel governance in Nigeria’s north-east and Niger: illegitimate state practices, community resilience, and cohesion, external counterinsurgency actions, ‘big men’, and ideology.
Reviewing Jihadist Governance in the Sahel
The ways in which jihadist insurgents in the Sahel govern is rarely considered in the academic literature. They have often been portrayed as ‘Islamic terrorists’, who achieve their objectives by using brutal force against the civilian population and who finance their activities through criminal networks and activities. However, scattered empirical evidence reveals a different picture. Jihadist insurgents, like other insurgent groups, often use a variety of strategies to rule territory and populations. The scale, character and form of how such groups govern differs not only between countries but also at the sub-national level within the same group. Nevertheless, until recently jihadist insurgent governance in Africa and particularly the Sahel region has largely been overlooked. This synthesis reviews the existing literature on jihadist governance in West Africa, with a particular emphasis on the understudied region of the Sahel. The review is organised as follows: first, we clarify key concepts and provide definitions. Second, we provide a brief overview of Islam and politics in the Sahel, contextualising the rise of Salafist-jihadism as well as historical cases of jihadist governance. Third, we provide a brief overview of the literature and synthesise the existing research on jihadist insurgent governance in the Sahel. Fourth, we examine some key cases of jihadist governance in northern Mali, Nigeria and the Liptako-Gourma region straddling Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Finally, we conclude by summarising our findings, discussing the implications for the study of civil war and insurgency and consider avenues for future research.
The Sahel’s jihadists don’t all govern alike: context matters
The way jihadist insurgents in the Sahel governs differs between but also within groups. Jihadists do not follow strict ideological templates for imposing their rule or rely only on the use of violence. They continuously adapt the manner in which they govern in response to internal factional dynamics and pressure from state and non-state actors. They also respond to local politics and conflicts.