Supported research projects – 2022
Table of Contents
Local Governments’ Peace Building Committees and Farmers-Pastoralists Conflicts in South-West Nigeria
Gbeke Adenuga
Much has been written and said about farmers-pastoralists conflicts in Nigeria given the colossal loss of lives and property that have attended the conflicts. Many perspectives, including climate change and its management, resource control, ethnic and religious divides, governments’ responses in terms of policies, roles of security agencies, activities of farmers and pastoralists, interventions by non-governmental bodies, etc. have been examined to provide viable and long-lasting solutions to the conflicts with little or no obvious success to its management. However, the light of research has not been beamed on the roles played and to be played by a vital institution of government, which is the Peace and Security Committee of every Local Government in Nigeria.
Nigeria is a federal state with three levels of government which are the Federal, State and Local Governments. While there are debates on the scope and powers of these three levels of government, there is a consensus in the literature that the Local Government is the key level of government given its proximity to the people. It is the government at the grassroots and such is expected to have more knowledge on the people residing in its locality than all other levels of government. It is also expected that the Local Government has more impact on events in its sphere of jurisdiction than the other levels of government.
A major feature of the Local Government system in Nigeria is its uniformity. All Local Governments have the same structure of authority and administration and to this end, similar committees exist in all of them. A major committee is the Peace and Security Committee which is saddled with the task of discussing security issues and recommending policy options for crisis management and peace building in the Local Government Area. The Committee is headed by the Executive Chairman and comprises of key officials in the Local Government and representatives of major security agencies including the Army, Nigeria Police Force and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and registered vigilantes groups. Representatives of the traditional institutions also form the core of the Committee. Given the plurality of the Nigerian state, the Committee also has as part of its membership representatives of major ethnic and religious groups in the Local Government Area.
Premised on the importance of Local Governments and the scope of membership and duties of their Peace and Security Committees, there seems to be a lacuna in the literature on the management of farmers-pastoralists conflicts in Nigeria. This is because more research focus is on states and federal governments’ management strategies of the conflicts than on the interventions by the government nearest to the conflict events. Thus, the main thrust of this study is to examine the roles the Local Governments, through their Peace and Security Committees, have played in managing the conflicts. Beyond this objective, research attention would also be given to the challenges and prospects of these committees in managing the conflicts.
The focus of the research would be on South West Nigeria. The scope is determined by about three related factors. First, South West Nigeria is primarily agrarian in economy as farming is a major occupation of the people living in this geo-political zone. This fact has made the geo-political zone a major theater of conflicts between farmers and pastoralists in the country. Second, as opposed to other geo-political zones with high incidences of herders-farmers crisis such as North Central, North East and North West Nigeria, there is a sharp and clear ethnic divide between pastoralists, who are mostly of the Fulani/Hausa ethnic group, and farmers who are predominantly Yoruba. This also brings in a religious dimension as assumptions see Christianity to be more predominant in Nigeria’s South than in the Northern part of the country. Third, farmers-pastoralists crisis have also been the major reason for the clamour to the right of self-determination in South West Nigeria.
The study would adopt the descriptive survey method and would triangulate data between primary and secondary sources. Primary data would be sourced from interview sessions with key members of the Peace and Security Committees in the six identified Local Governments. Four Focus Group Discussions would also be held comprising Local government administrators, farmers, pastoralists, and representatives of ethnic and religious groups in each Local Government Area. Secondary data would be sourced from books, journal articles, newspapers and magazines and online sources, especially from the ACLED database. While descriptive statistics would be employed to analyse primary data, content analysis would be the major analytical tool for secondary sources.
This study is expected to play a major role in the peace building process between farmers and pastoralists in South West Nigeria and by extension in Nigeria in general. Farmers-pastoralists conflicts in the country have become one of the most significant crisis in terms of loss of lives and property in the international community.
The micro-foundations of emergency constitutions
Jaroslaw Kantorowicz
This research builds on a cross-country comparative work on emergency constitutions by Christian Bjørnskov and Stefan Voigt who in a series of studies treat the emergency constitutions as both explenandum and explanans. Besides tracing key trends in the evolution of emergency constitutions, Bjørnskov and Voigt’s research also provides crucial lessons as to how emergency constitutions, captured through an index of emergency powers, are related to declaring a state of emergency and under what conditions emergency powers are used. The ambition of the present proposal is to complement this important line of research by introducing a new level of analysis in examining emergency constitutions, namely an individual level. The overarching research questions, constituting the two pillars of this project, are as follows:
(1) What are citizens’ preferences over the design of emergency constitutions? What is an ideal (optimal) design of the emergency constitution from thepoint of view of the public?
(2) To what extent is the public support for declaring a state of emergency affected by the features of emergency constitutions and other contextual factors of declaring a state of emergency?
By turning the optics and focusing on public preferences towards emergency constitutions, this project investigates the so-called micro-foundations of emergency constitutions. The focus on citizens should be no controversial assuming that citizens are an ultimate source of legitimacy of state power. As such, this project also reflects the recent developments in the field of constitutional political economy, which increasingly shifts its empirical attention to study citizens’ preferences and perceptions.
The goal of the first pillar of this research is to establish an ideal (optimal) design of emergency constitution from the point of view of the public, to measure the importance attached to various aspects/dimensions of such design and to examine trade-offs among the dimensions of emergency constitution. The aim of the second pillar is to study the conditions which make the public more or less supportive of state of emergency declarations.
Stable Climatic Conditions as a Resource Curse in the Era of Climate Change
Anastasia Litina and Eftichios Sartzetakis
The aim of the research project is to examine, both theoretically and empirically, whether, as impacts of climate change intensify, a phenomenon similar to natural resource curse is unfolding in countries that have historically had favourable climatic conditions. In particular, we propose to test the hypothesis that countries which have experienced favourable climatic conditions in the past suffer more severe damages from climate change associated extreme weather events, relative to countries exposed to rapid weather changes in the past. The explanation that we will test is that the former countries were less keen in preparing to address adverse climatic conditions and as a result developed inferior institutions and more importantly infrastructure, relative to the latter countries. Since extreme weather events attributed to climate change, such as heatwaves, droughts and hurricanes, are becoming continuously more frequent and severe1 and they affect all countries in unpredictable patterns, countries that are less prepared suffer higher damages both economically and in terms of human losses.
The term resource curse, in its current use, describes the paradox where some countries that are rich in non-renewable natural resources such as oil and minerals, manifest worst economic outcomes compared to countries that have fewer resources. The literature offers many explanations, the most prominent of which are the lower quality of institutions and the specialization in the resource sector, suppressing economic activity in other sectors, becoming vulnerable to declines in commodity prices and ultimately damaging economic growth.
This study aims to test whether a similar paradox exists when we consider as “resource rich” a country experiencing good climatic conditions, perceived as stable climate throughout history. Our effort will be founded on the abundant resources of data on past climatic conditions and annual, as well as quarterly data about mean temperature all over the globe. Based on these data we will first define what we will term as climate-rich countries, in reference to the resource-rich countries. Then, we will test whether these climate-rich countries, experience higher degree of destruction from the extreme weather events related to climate change over the last few decades. Finally, we will test whether higher damages can be attributed to the fact that the climate-rich countries have not developed in the past the necessary institutions and infrastructure to respond to extreme weather events.
It should be clarified that we do not argue that climate change consequences are more severe for the resource-rich countries. On the contrary, these random and scattered impacts of climate change are an important element of our identification strategy, precisely as they can hit any country in an unpredictable manner. What we will attempt to establish is that the climate-rich countries suffer higher damages relative to non-climate-rich countries facing similar extreme weather events, because they have not been historically prepared for these shocks. In doing so we will control for additional confounders that can also explain why some countries are more severely hit by disasters, such as e.g., their degree of development or the type of shock. Netting out the effect of potential confounders will allow use to shed light on our hypothesized mechanism
The Role of Tax Courts During Economic Crises
Orli Oren-Kolbinger
Economic crises are a given and inevitable part of the economy. The world is currently living through such a crisis due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. As part of their efforts to stabilize the economy during crises, governments implement fiscal policy through the tax and transfer systems. Given the inherent substitutability between the degree of accuracy of the more traditional fiscal stabilizers and their complexity, i.e., the cost of their design and application, their implementation is not flawless.
Tax courts can also serve as fiscal stabilizers during economic crises because judicial decisions in tax disputes carry fiscal implications. However, this stabilization potential has not received much attention in the literature. The proposed research project will focus on the following question: do tax courts consider the non-legal objective of economic stabilization as they decide in tax disputes during economic crises? To answer this question, I will analyze, using quantitative empirical methods, judicial decisions made by U.S. Tax Court judges and Israeli District Court judges leading to and following the 2008 Great Recession and the leading to and during the various phases of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.
Exploring Individual Drivers of Violent Extremism in North Macedonia through Life-course Trajectories
Angelina Stanojoska, Ice Ilijevski and Kire Babanoski
After the Paris attacks in 2015, there has been increased interest among criminologists in understanding the life experiences and biographies of individuals who have been engaged in violent extremism. The most widely accepted theory for this type of research is the life-course perspective. This research offers a holistic approach to examining and investigating the individual factors and social drivers that push people towards radicalisation and violent extremism. Building on the components of this theory, the research focuses on exploring and understanding violent extremism in North Macedonia through the extremists’ life experiences. It contributes to the identification and explanation of the life-course trajectories of incarcerated individuals who have been violent extremists and radicalised, as well as to the more successful identification of latent ‘new’ targets who could be radicalised. The research utilises a set of life-course criminological tools to explore individual-level experiences, motives and drivers for engagement in violent extremism in late adolescence and emerging adulthood, and it examines the intricate intersections of biography, social context and life-course contingent dynamics of both group- and self-narratives. To further substantiate its findings, the study will test the life-course perspective theory using historical data from various sources, including prison records, court proceedings, interviews and community reports. By analysing this data, the research aims to identify patterns and trajectories that are unique to the target population, uncovering critical points in the life-course that are most susceptible to radicalisation. This methodological approach ensures a robust analysis of the biographical and social dynamics influencing violent extremism, providing a comprehensive understanding that can inform both prevention and intervention strategies in the context of North Macedonia.
Stanojoska, A., Babanoski, K., & Ilijevski, I. (2025). Exploring Individual Drivers of Violent Extremism in North Macedonia through Life Histories: A. Stanojoska et al. Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology, 1-25.
The project was presented in our seminar in November 2022: Exploring Individual Drivers of Violent Extremism in North Macedonia through Life-Course Trajectories
Insurgency Peace: The Continuing Dialogue on Civilian Joint Task Force and Counter-Insurgency Operations in Borno State, North-Eastern Region of Nigeria
Seun Bamidele
The research focuses on the security challenges posed by Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria vis-à-vis the glaring underperformance of the military in dealing with the insurgency. The military’s various operational and organisational challenges, especially regarding intelligence and hardware, in the face of escalating insurgency has led to the growth of a civilian movement, the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), popularly known as ‘Durza Ka’. Government’s recognition of CJTF has evoked public debate in the terrorised community and the nation, raising fundamental questions on the wisdom of engaging untrained civilians in counter-insurgency warfare. One of the concerns is that civilian involvement could jeopardise the role of the military. Another strand of the debate recognises the role of local community-led security efforts in managing the peculiar security challenges of the immediate environment. Many believe that local security groups are better equipped to identify the enemy, know the terrain better and have better intelligence-gathering capabilities than the military. Scholars’ attention has been predominantly directed at political, military and other law enforcement-related approaches. However, the decision by the military to incorporate CJTF in counter-insurgency operations has opened new thinking on security issues that supports community self-defense and civilian-military synergies. The aim of this research is to investigate the role of an unconventional, community-based security component in military counter-insurgency operations, and to assess how the civilian component has fared in Borno State. The study will investigate the group’s potential as a useful counter-insurgency measure, using David Galula’s counter-insurgency theory to analyse the group’s actions and to contest the dualistic understanding of conventional vs unconventional local peacebuilding approaches. The research adopts a qualitative, ethnographic methodology, locating the research in the context of global development and security discourse. The study aims to establish the value of the CJTF counter-insurgency group, to position unconventional local counter-insurgency movements as a viable complement to conventional methods, and to proffer clues on how security initiatives may more successfully combat Islamic insurgency in Nigeria.
The legal and operational history of Canada’s use of emergency measures and the military in domestic operations
Tyler Wentzell
This research is concerned with how the Canadian state pivoted to confront developing threats, such as the perceived threat of Soviet-sponsored communism in the 1930s and 1940s, the post-Second World War emergence of a military role in natural disaster response (an understudied evolution that has become more pressing in the face of COVID-19 and climate-change related natural disasters), and the evolving confrontations between the state and First Nations sovereignty advocates. Although this research focuses on Canada, it will be valuable to an international audience as it takes a comparative (particularly examining how and why the “Canadian approach” has diverged from parent state Great Britain) and in using Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope’s interactional accounting of how international law has impacted Canada’s rule of law project.
Restoring the Rule of Law in Fragile States and Conflict-effected Situation: The Venezuelan Case
José Ignacio Hernández
This research is aimed to analyze the rule of law in Venezuela, a fragile state with weak institutions that have been coopted by informal and criminal organizations. Specifically, the support is requested to compile current data describing Venezuela’s collapse. The research is framed on the role of Constitutional Law in fragile states and conflict-affected situations.
The project was presented in our seminar in May, 2024: Restoring the Rule of Law in Fragile States and Conflict-effected Situation: The Venezuelan Case