The state, non-state actors, and populations: security responses to insurgent attacks in Sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis focuses on the variation in militarised responses to insurgent activity. I explore subnational variation in security sector responses to Boko Haram attacks in north-eastern Nigeria between the period 2010 - 2016. I build upon theories of state-society relations, governance in areas of limited statehood, and insurgent rule to advance a theory of security sector interventions. I argue that social relationships, particularly in weak or conflict affected contexts, or within complex security constellations, facilitate information sharing with the government in ways that determine security sector responses to violence. Using expert interviews and a mapping of attacks in the three most affected north-eastern states, namely, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, I posit that two sets of relationships: namely, those between vigilante groups and state governors, and those between insurgent groups and local communities – impact military responsiveness through the government’s ability to generate information about violence unfolding within state borders. I demonstrate how the social embeddedness of insurgent groups within communities – and its repercussions for information-generation by the government – shape the trajectory of responses. I further elaborate how collaborative relationships between state governors and vigilante groups similarly determine the government’s ability to generate sufficient information about insurgent activity. These information-generating mechanisms determine whether militaries are deployed in response to insurgent attacks. I contribute to a burgeoning body of literature on state-society relations in conflict and the social foundations of war to provide evidence of the societal underpinnings of the state, even in its deployment of military capacity, its responses to insurgency, and its perpetration of violence.