This article attempts to understand the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the regulation of regional security in West Africa. In doing this, it takes a critical look at the internal dynamics of West Africa and how they shape the organization, as well as at ECOWAS' responses to a highly volatile and unpredictable region. It also exami...

This article attempts to understand the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in the regulation of regional security in West Africa. In doing this, it takes a critical look at the internal dynamics of West Africa and how they shape the organization, as well as at ECOWAS' responses to a highly volatile and unpredictable region. It also exami...

This article argues that access to clientelistic networks is central to the ability of youth to engage in violent activities in Nigeria's oil-rich Delta. Even though the literature has demonstrated that the contradictions of oil wealth and economic neglect provide the backdrop for conflict in the region, the actual channels through which it becomes possible to acti...

Using the 2009 Amnesty in Nigeria's Niger Delta, this paper explores youth manipulation of neopatrimonial systems of coercion and cooptation. It makes three arguments. First, the violence preceding the amnesty declaration was as much a youth-led insurgency to protest social and environmental justice issues as it was a crisis within Nigeria's neopatrimonial system. ...