Horizontal Inequalities and Militancy: The Case of Nigeria’s Niger Delta

Abstract

The upsurge of violent conflicts in the early 1990s unexpectedly animated academic and policy interest in social cohesion and in political stability. Given the political, humanitarian and economic costs of violent conflict, most studies on intra-state conflicts have focused on the causes of such violence (see Van de Goor et al., 1996). A huge range of perspectives has emerged in the field of conflict analysis, but the new political economy approach that focuses on the economic dimension of civil war has become particularly prominent (see Berdal and Malone, 2000; Collier and Hoeffler, 2000). The absence of superpower support for rebel groups has of necessity strengthened the tendency for rebellion to be self-financing (see Sherman and Ballentine, 2003). Scholars and policy-makers have explored the role of feasibility and opportunity costs at the onset of conflicts. The ‘greed’ of rebel leaders and of their recruits is considered to be the central explanatory variable, because a variety of factors — such as the availability of ‘lootable’ natural resources, low commodity prices and the presence of an army of unemployed youths — are shown to have a positive correlation with the onset of civil wars (see Le Billon, 2000; Humphreys and Weinstein, 2008; Nillesen and Verwimp, 2009). This argument triggered the so-called greed and grievance debates between scholars who focus on the economic interests of rebel leaders and combatants, and scholars who focus on the political, social, economic and cultural grievances of identity-based groups.