ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we review existing literature on the roles of traditional authority in security governance in Africa and outline the aims of this book. We show that traditional leaders are often framed as brokers, who may facilitate, co-produce, or hinder effective governance; exploring the dynamics of this role is one of the key lines of inquiry running through this book. We also highlight the three most promising hypotheses to explain the roles (and alleged resurgence) of traditional authorities in governance across Africa: their community embeddedness (”skin in the game”), indigenous knowledge (“conflict medicine”), and relations to the state. The chapter explains these hypotheses and lays them out as a framework for the rest of the book, which we return to in the final chapter. Finally, we argue for a historical approach to understanding the role of traditional authorities that recognises colonial impacts on processes of institutional change and state formation, but also takes seriously the agency and creativity of Nigerians in the re-imagination of their postcolonial polity.
