Strategic Exclusion: The State and the Framing of a Service Delivery Role for Civil Society Organizations in the Context of Counterterrorism in Nigeria

Abstract

Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document.When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policyWhile the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

State‐oriented service‐delivery partnership with civil society organizations in the context of counter‐terrorism in Nigeria

“…By controlling CSOs' non-political activities and curbing their political activities, the state defines what constitute human rights violations or sets the limits for what are defined as rights abuses in the context of counter-terrorism. The empirical evidence in this study supports Njoku's (2018) argument that, in formulating counter-terrorism laws and policies,…”

“…By controlling CSOs’ non‐political activities and curbing their political activities, the state defines or sets the limits for what constitute human rights violations in the context of counter‐terrorism. The empirical evidence presented in this study supports Njoku’s (2018) argument that, in formulating counter‐terrorism laws and policies, the government believes that over‐emphasizing human rights would be counter‐productive, hence its exclusion of such CSOs in the framing of CTMs due to their political advocacy. Similarly, it highlights Watson and Burles’ (2018, p. 6) claims that in the United States and Russia “civil society is permitted to celebrate the positive aspects of the social order, and remedy its negative effects, but is often excluded from directly or publicly contesting social order”.…”

“…In the context of Nigeria, Njoku (2018Njoku ( , 2020b argues that the state is threatened by CSOs' political advocacy, believing that it is essential to place less emphasis on human rights claims in order to overcome terrorism. Consequently, the exclusion of CSOs in the framing of CTMs gave the state the opportunity to construct a service-delivery role for CSOs (Njoku, 2018).…”

“…In the context of Nigeria, Njoku (2018Njoku ( , 2020b argues that the state is threatened by CSOs' political advocacy, believing that it is essential to place less emphasis on human rights claims in order to overcome terrorism. Consequently, the exclusion of CSOs in the framing of CTMs gave the state the opportunity to construct a service-delivery role for CSOs (Njoku, 2018). Njoku (2020a) terms this engagement-containment approach the "politics of conviviality", which he claimed impinges on CSOs' independence and capacity to effectively address social issues.…”

“…There have been many debates on state formulation and entrenching of service-delivery roles for civil society organizations (CSOs) 1 in the context of counter-terrorism (Bolleyer & Gauja, 2017;DeMattee, 2019;Njoku, 2020aNjoku, , 2018Njoku, , 2019Poppe & Wolff, 2017;Skokova et al, 2018;Watson & Burles, 2018), but little is known about how such partnerships work in practice. Knowledge about how CSOs make sense of their partnership with the state and its implications also remains marginal.…”