This book asks two questions about ethnic violence. First, who are the people who
take to the streets and commit acts of violence during the chaotic chains of events we
know as ethnic riots? Second, why does this set of people ultimately decide to riot?
Most contemporary studies of ethnic conflict overlook these questions and focus instead
on the incentives of elites to instigate violence. This literature struggles to explain why
ordinary people would choose to accept the risks and potential costs involved in carrying
out violence on a local scale.
The central argument advanced here is that poverty will increase the likelihood of
riot participation for people who are embedded in social networks that link them to
other potential participants. I argue that, in contexts where state authorities cannot
guarantee protection for their citizens, poor people will be particularly vulnerable to
attack once a riot begins. They will therefore be more willing to riot in order to defend
their property, their families and themselves. Given the motivation to riot, certain types
of social networks at the grassroots level help to transform potential into actual rioters.
The motivating “push” of poverty and the “pull” of local social ties make an explosive
combination.
To evaluate this argument, I draw on an original survey of nearly 800 respondents who
chose to (or chose not to) participate in deadly Christian-Muslim riots in the northern
Nigerian cities of Kaduna in 2000 and Jos in 2001. The survey contains direct questions
about past participation in violent events and relies on an innovative sampling strategy
in order to locate rioters and elicit honest responses from them. The book also includes
material from nearly 40 in-depth interviews with riot participants, to confirm the robustness
of the joint effect of poverty and local social embeddedness on riot participation and
evaluate alternative mechanisms that might underpin this relationship.