(Re)Framing 'the Jihad' in Western Africa: An Epistemic Disobedience

The thesis develops and deploys novel theoretical and analytical frameworks to argue that jihadist movements in Western Africa are not simply caused by the presence of socioeconomic conditions or ethnoreligious factors, as often claimed, but more fundamentally by the persistence of these within the state in Africa. The persistence, not simply the presence, of adverse socioeconomic conditions allows the politicisation and historicisation of ethnoreligious and geographical identities as vehicles in search of a political alternative. The thesis re-synthesises the causal variables of jihadism and their levels of operation to illustrate how particular governance structures facilitate the evolution of jihadist rebellion.