Nigerian society is characterized by profound security deficits. This includes a deep mistrust between the population and uniformed representatives of the state, which most recently erupted in weeks of protests and deadly confrontations with the police in the fall of 2020. For years, national and international actors have been pursuing reforms to improve Nigeria's security architecture sustainably.
The book "Policing in Nigeria. Sicherheit im Spannungsfeld von globalen Reformkonzepten und lokalen Praktiken" by Nina Müller deals with the local perception of selected measures within the Nigerian police reform. The ethnographic work's epistemological interest is to explore whether and how the intended changes manifest themselves in everyday life at the local level and which negotiation processes they are subject to in the process.
The study was conducted at the PRIF as part of the research project Cultural Effects of Global Norm Transmission for SSR.
Nina Müller is an Associate Fellow at PRIF in the Research Department "Glocal Junctions", as well as a Researcher at the Department of Criminology and Interdisciplinary Crime Prevention at the German Police University (DHPol). Her research focuses on security architecture and police reform in Nigeria as well as citizen-police interactions.