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Paper short abstract:

In recent years, self-defense groups (SDGs) in Burkina Faso known as koglweogo, among others, have gained increasing prominence, highlighting the challenges citizens face in contexts of conflict. This paper draws on an original dataset to analyze spatial and temporal patterns in SDG activity.

Paper long abstract:

The monopoly of violence is a defining feature of states that is regularly violated as citizens throughout the world turn to nonstate security providers, including local militias and self-defense groups (SDGs). In recent years, SDGs in Burkina Faso known as koglweogo, rouga, tin kubi u gogu, and dosso/dozo, among others, have gained increasing prominence, highlighting the challenges citizens face in contexts of state weakness and conflict. In such settings, how do citizens navigate among state and nonstate security providers and what impacts their engagement with each? Conventional wisdom suggests that demand-side factors, particularly state weakness and threat, should drive citizens to seek alternative forms of security provision. However, this paper highlights the importance of supply-side factors, including historical institutions and economic resources, which impact the likelihood that citizens engage with self-defense groups. Drawing on an original dataset of 1100 articles from the Burkinabé news media about SDG activity, ACLED conflict event reporting, and a wealth of spatial and qualitative data, I test four key hypotheses about the growth of non-state security provision, related to threat response, state weakness, collective organizing capacity, and economic opportunism connected to mineral extraction. This is the first paper in a larger project on state formation and SDGs in Burkina Faso. The findings shed light on the strategic choices citizens make, often among multiple flawed institutions, in hopes of increasing their security. In doing so, citizens and SDGs shape the nature of the state and state-society relations.