Conflicts and political intervention : evidence from the anti-open grazing laws in Nigeria

This paper empirically investigates the effects of Anti-Open Grazing Laws (AOGLs) on herder-farmer conflicts in Nigeria. The laws, enacted as a response to escalating violent conflicts over fertile land resources between herders and farmers, aimed to reduce clashes by prohibiting livestock grazing in specific areas and periods. Our study employs a geographic difference-in-discontinuities design, leveraging the sharp change in legal conditions at state borders and the panel structure of our data. We integrate conflict data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) with spatially disaggregated microdata to analyze how AOGLs influence conflict incidence across regions of Nigeria. Our findings indicate limited effectiveness of AOGLs in curbing herder-farmer conflicts, suggesting instead a displacement of conflicts. It also appears that the laws have led to a slight increase in overall conflict within the states implementing them, arguably due to increased engagements between herder or farmer groups and security forces. These results underscore the need for more comprehensive, context-specific interventions to address the root causes of herder-farmer conflicts.