Does exposure to violent conflict increase support for government surveillance? Although this question has been investigated in Europe, North America, and Asia, there is a notable lack of research examining it in fragile settings characterised by a high incidence of violent conflict. To fill this research gap, this study uses Afrobarometer survey data (N=3,200) collected in Nigeria, one of the world’s most fragile states.
Regression analysis reveals that as exposure to violent conflict increases, Nigerians become less supportive of government surveillance. Notably, this pattern contrasts with findings from non-African contexts, where exposure to violence is associated with greater acceptance of security-driven infringements on civil liberties.
I argue that the pattern observed in Nigeria is driven by distrust in state institutions, weak civilian protection, and coercive state practices. Moreover, because the civil liberties of individuals in fragile contexts may already be undermined by curfews, military checkpoints, and a heavy security presence, citizens may be reluctant to grant the government additional leverage by ceding surveillance powers. The results are robust across alternative measures of conflict, different estimation methods, and an extended analysis using survey data from 36 African countries (N≈94,000).
These results suggest that in fragile settings where the state is often viewed with suspicion, attempts to pursue intrusive surveillance policies as a security measure are unlikely to gain wide acceptance because citizens view them not as a means to security but as an additional threat.
