Religiosity and Rebellion in Nigeria: Considering Boko Haram in the Radical Tradition

Natalie Delia Deckard, Atta Barkindo and David Jacobson

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 2015, vol. 38, issue 7, 510-528

Abstract: Testing social movement theory positing that radical organizations are ideologically driven at their core, but are supported by civilians who are driven by social factors, this research interrogates the disparity between radical group ideology and supporter belief set in the context of present-day Nigeria. Content analysis of randomly selected Boko Haram publications establishes the high, and increasing, levels of religiosity exhibited by the violent social movement itself. In contrast, a large-N survey of Nigerians conducted in 2012 and 2013 shows that high levels of religiosity do not significantly predict willingness to justify violence, commitment to non-state violent actors, or positive attitude toward Boko Haram among Nigerians as a whole, but rather the opposite. Given these findings, Boko Haram may be better understood within the tradition of radical extremist movements across the ideological spectrum, even while it frames its struggle as that of a distinctly religious movement.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1057610X.2015.1022443 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uterxx:v:38:y:2015:i:7:p:510-528

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uter20

DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2015.1022443

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism is currently edited by Bruce Hoffman

More articles in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().