(Non-)State Authority and Legitimate Violence: A Survey Experiment in Nigeria

• In Event: New Horizons of Violence, Peace and Instability Research

Abstract

We investigate the micro-foundations of political authority in a context of fractured sovereignty, where armed non-state actors compete with the state for authority and legitimacy. We gauge the attitudinal underpinnings of authority by assessing citizen attitudes to the state's role as a security enforcer, when contrasted with non-state vigilante security providers. We field a pre-registered survey experiment in Nigeria, gauging how citizens view this contrast. Our experiment probes several theoretical logics that are often assumed to affect state and nonstate authority, namely: performance legitimacy, procedural legitimacy, popular support, contractual legitimacy and the danger of the situation.

Authors

• Tore Wig, University of Oslo

• Hanne Fjelde, Uppsala University

• Megan Turnbull, University of Georgia

• Kristen Kao, University of Gothenburg