The Flourishing of Religion and Violence: Power-Sharing & the Volatility of Inter-Religious Violence in Nigeria
42 Pages Posted: 17 Jul 2012 Last revised: 10 Aug 2012
Date Written: 2012
Abstract
Under what conditions does religious identity become the fault-line of communal violence? Why does violence break out in some ethno-religiously pluralistic communities and not others with similar characteristics? Examining the variation in Muslim-Christian violence in northern Nigeria since the 1980s, I suggest that a community’s vulnerability to inter-religious violence is a function of pre-existing local-level inter-ethnic power-sharing arrangements. While scholars and policy-makers have been disappointed by the ability of formal, national-level power-sharing arrangements to avert ethnic conflict, they have overlooked the capacity of local government power-sharing institutions, which directly affects group representation and access to resources, to ameliorate or entirely avoid conflict.
Keywords: religion, violence, ethnic conflict, power-sharing
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