Abstract

Why do states often fail to enforce their own policies, especially those governing the poor and vulnerable? This paper argues that state actors can use forbearance coercively, in order to produce precarity in vulnerable populations and expose them to exploitation. I provide a conceptual framework which shows how this strategy of connivance is advantageous for state actors insofar as it empowers non-state allies who profit off of the vulnerability of regulated populations. These allies aid ruling parties, including by mobilizing voters and perpetrating election violence and interference. I focus on the role of transport unions in Lagos, Nigeria - extractive actors who extort drivers, and work as purveyors of electoral interference and violence for the ruling party - in determining state enforcement of a ban on okada motorcycle taxis in the state. First, using evidence from several months fieldwork in Lagos; as well as an original networked data on the Lagos transport union, I show how the Lagos State Government's selective enforcement of its ban on motorcycle taxis was preceded by clashes between operators and union members. Second, I use original geocoded data on enforcement locations, union territory, and traffic patterns along the Lagos road network to show how the political geography of the ban's enforcement displaced riders into areas controlled by the union. Third and finally, I exploit the timing of a surprising election result to show how a shock to state reliance on the union affects enforcement patterns. This paper not only explores how states can exploit an understudied 'enforcement lever' to and redistribute to their allies, but how powerful - but not necessarily criminal - groups can trade extralegal violence for such redistribution.

Recommended Citation

Pavlik, Melissa. 2025. "Connivance and Coercion: Spatial networks of state enforcement in Lagos, Nigeria." Working Paper.

Notes

Presented at the Leitner Program on Political Economy Workshop at Yale University, 2023 and 2025; American Political Science Association (APSA), 2024; APSA Comparative Labor Politics Workshop, 2025; Norteast Workshop on Empirical Political Science (NEWEPS), Spring 2025; Boston-Area Working Group on African Political Economy (BWGAPE), 2025; and European Political Science Association (EPSA), 2025. This work was supported by Yale University's MacMillian Center on International and Area Studies (2023, 2024) and the National Science Foundation's APSA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (2023).