In this article it is argued that, although the study of ethnicity in Nigeria bears the imprint of almost all the different perspectives that have been deployed towards the study of ethnicity; perspectives that privilege the role of the state and critical elites in ethnic mobilization have...

This paper critically reviews the ontological debates over the nature of ethnicity and the different ways in which it is operationalized and “measured” for quantitative research. It is argued that while moving away from a “primordealist” position on ethnicity renders measurement of the...

In order to explain the emergence of ethnic violence, scholars from different disciplines have focused on different factors, such as the role of ethnicity, the individual gain from civil war, the relative deprivation explanations and the role of ethnic elites, and proposed different conflict...