Pastoral conflicts and (dis)trust: Evidence from Nigeria using an instrumental variable approach

Although the incidence of conflicts between Fulani nomadic pastoralists and sedentary farmers in Nigeria have risen significantly during the last decade, no study has examined how these conflicts influence distrust of members of the Fulani ethnic group and the larger Muslim population, nor the conditions under which these conflicts, which are primarily about competition over land and water resources, morph into religious conflicts. Using novel survey data collected from Kaduna, the state with the third highest incidence of pastoral conflicts in Nigeria, this study fills these gaps. The regression results show that exposure to pastoral conflicts cause distrust of members of the Fulani ethnic group and Muslims; although the size of the effect is much larger for the Fulani compared to Muslims. This shows that the population in Kaduna tend to conflate the Fulani with Muslims. Religious polarization was found to catalyze the process of resource conflicts turning religious.