Violent conflict and hostility towards ethno-religious outgroups in Nigeria

Abstract

Although Nigeria has a high incidence of violent conflict and is divided along ethno-religious lines, no study has, to the best of my knowledge, examined the effect of violent conflict on hostility towards ethnic and religious outgroups using representative data for Nigeria, nor the differential effects of violent conflict on outgroup hostility among Nigerias Muslim and Christian populations. This study does so. The instrumental variable regression results showed that among Nigerias population, violent conflict has a positive effect on outgroup hostility. A plausible mechanism through which this occurs is that violent conflict erodes trust and makes ethnic and religious fault lines salient, which in turn leads to outgroup hostility. When I broke down the data based on religious affiliation and estimated some models using the Muslim and Christian subsamples of respondents, the analysis showed that violent conflict has a positive effect on outgroup hostility only among Christians.

Under God’s protective wings: Does exposure to violent conflict make Nigerians value God more?

“…Although many studies have examined how religion could lead to violent conflicts in Nigeria (e.g. Tuki 2023;Agbiboa 2013Agbiboa , 2013aKrause 2011;Ukiwo 2003;Bienen 1986), none, to the best of my knowledge, has examined the effect of violent conflicts on religiosity. Using representative survey data for Nigeria, as well as econometric techniques, this study fills that gap.…”

You’re not welcome! Violence and support for a grazing ban policy in Kaduna, Nigeria.

“…Commenting on the tense relationship between nomadic herders and resident populations in Nigeria's Middlebelt Region, Balarabe (2021Balarabe ( , p. 1837 noted: "The indigene-settler dichotomy is a heated issue, particularly where the two [actors] belong to different ethnic groups or religious beliefs." Tuki (2023) posits that religion is crucial in understanding the dynamics of farmer-herder conflicts. Using representative survey data for Nigeria, he shows that both Muslim selfidentification and Muslim domination (i.e., a scenario where the resident population in a municipality is predominantly Muslim) reduces the likelihood of being concerned about farmerherder conflicts.…”