Political alignment and organized violence: Evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

Does the alignment of local politicians with the ruling party affect organized violence? Applying a regression discontinuity design to closely contested constituencies in the 2011 Nigerian House of Representatives election, we show that the number of violent events, resulting deaths, and the incidence of displacement are lower in areas where the ruling-party candidates win a close election. We show that the effect of political alignment on violence is driven by violence initiated by extremist groups against civilians and conflicts involving the government and extremist groups, suggesting extremist groups react differently to the election of aligned and non-aligned local politicians. We posit several hypotheses and empirically test those to explain the potential mechanisms.