Urban-rural geographies of political violence in North and West Africa

Keywords: political violence, conflict, cities, urbanization, North and West Africa
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper assesses the relationship between population density and political violence within North and West Africa. We find that while the plurality of violence has occurred in lower density areas, violence is indeed spatially associated with urban areas, occurring most-frequently near cities and urbanized places. Using disaggregated data for 21 states across 22 years, our analysis shows that while only 31% of all violent events occurred in locations designated as urban, nearly 50% occurred within just 10 km of urban areas, suggesting there may indeed be an urban dimension of violence in the region and exhibiting a classic distance-decay effect. We also find that North and West Africa have followed a divergent evolution. Conflicts are increasingly rural in West Africa due to the emergence of Jihadist organizations, while urban violence was more common overall in the highly urbanized states in North Africa. There are also important differences in the relationship between violence and distance to urban areas across states as some states with major conflicts, such as Nigeria and Libya exhibit a clear distance decay pattern, while others, such as Mali, do not. Our findings therefore provide mixed evidence for the typical ‘urbanization of conflict’ discourse in the literature.