Imrana Alhaji Buba

• Buba, Imrana (2026). Civilian compliance and victimization in the Boko Haram insurgency. Journal of Peace Research. ISSN 0022-3433. doi: 10.1093/jopres/xjag077. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How does variation in civilian compliance strategies shape wartime victimization? Across civil wars, some contested communities are displaced while others remain in place despite exposure to armed actors. Existing research explains civilian victimization primarily through armed actors' strategies, with limited attention to how civilians shape its form. I argue that civilian compliance, defined as accommodating the demands of armed actors without formally joining them, is a self-protection strategy that can reduce immediate danger but shifts civilians' exposure toward different forms of victimization. Drawing on fieldwork and a subnational comparison of two contested communities in northeastern Nigeria, I show that variation in civilian compliance shapes how armed actors interpret civilian behavior. Fragmented compliance, in which civilians selectively comply with the actor they perceive as most threatening, produces signals that rival forces interpret as support for the opposing side, prompting punitive operations and displacement. By contrast, dual compliance, in which civilians accommodate both rebels and state forces while presenting compliance as exclusive to each, creates behavioral ambiguity. Lacking clear evidence that civilians assist their rival, armed actors tolerate civilian presence and rely instead on surveillance and coercive extraction. The findings show that patterns of civilian compliance shape armed actors' use of violence, producing displacement in some communities and in situ victimization in others. By identifying civilian compliance as the behavioral signal through which armed actors infer civilian support, the article nuances existing explanations of variation in wartime victimization.

• Dedios-Sanguineti, María Cecilia; Buitrago-Rubiano, Felipe; González-Gort, Mónica; Buba, Imrana; Ihring, Diana & Stewart, Crystal [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). Assessing the psychometric properties of the WHO-5 Well-being Index in conflict-affected humanitarian contexts. Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health. ISSN 1728-0583. 37(2), s. 256–271. doi: 10.2989/17280583.2026.2652959. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Background: Children and adolescents living in conflict-driven humanitarian contexts face heightened risks of violence and abuse, which can significantly affect their immediate and long-term well-being. The evaluation of interventions to support adolescent well-being in these settings requires a validated, simple, yet robust measure of the broad construct of psychological well-being. Objective: This study aimed to validate the WHO-5 Well-being Index, a short, self-reported instrument designed to assess subjective psychological well-being, for use with adolescents in two conflict-affected humanitarian contexts, including Colombia and Nigeria. Method: Participants (N = 172) were aged 13 to 17 years and resided in Colombia (n = 90) or Nigeria (n = 82). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to assess the WHO-5 Index psychometric properties. Results: A one-factor structure of the WHO-5 Well-being Index was supported, showing high internal consistency (α and ω > 0.80), excellent convergent validity (assessed with the Kidscreen-27 scale, r = 0.797, p < 0.01), and acceptable discriminant validity (assessed with the PHQ-9 scale, r = -0.343, p < 0.001). Confirmatory factor analysis supported the one-factor model, initially with poor fit (CFI = 0.972, TLI = 0.944, RMSEA = 0.105). After accounting for covariance between items 3 and 4, the model fit improved significantly (CFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.994, RMSEA = 0.034). Conclusion: This study reaffirms the WHO-5 Well-being Index as a valid instrument to assess the well-being of Spanish- and Hausa-speaking adolescents who have experienced family separation, abuse, violence, neglect, and/or exploitation in humanitarian contexts.

• Medie, Peace A; Jose, Betcy; Bell-Martin, Rebecca; Marston, Jerome; Buba, Imrana Alhaji & Gray, Felicity [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). Civilian Self-Protection in Theory and Practice. International Studies Review. ISSN 1521-9488. 28(4). doi: 10.1093/isr/viag014. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  2025 marked 10 years since International Studies Review (ISR) published “Understanding why and how Civilians Resort to Self-protection in Armed Conflict.” This article situated civilian self-protection in the civilian protection regime. It demonstrated how civilians use self-protection strategies and how these strategies can undermine civilian protection. The article also sought to foster theory building and comparative analyses by advancing a typology of civilian self-protection, which is based on actions taken in intra and interstate conflicts. One of the article’s aims was to elevate civilian agency in discussions of civilian protection in armed conflict. Since then, the study of civilian self-protection (CSP) has grown enormously. What have we learned from this new scholarship about the role civilians play in their own protection? What progress has been made in theory building? What do we still need to study? This forum seeks to return to ISR a conversation among CSP scholars about the state of the field in the last decade and contemplate its future trajectory. The contributions in this forum interrogate a gamut of newer issues pertaining to CSP that convey the concept’s utility for theoretical, methodological, and policy-based discussions. In doing so, they enhance our understandings of civilian experiences and how their protections can be improved. These insights are particularly important given the scale of civilian suffering today amid an unprecedented number of conflicts and violent encounters.

• Buba, Imrana Alhaji & Krause, Jana (2026). Civilian militia formation and protection against rebel violence: Evidence from Nigeria. Political Geography. ISSN 0962-6298. 126. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103497. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Why do some civilian defense militias effectively protect civilians while others fail and seem to only exacerbate rebel violence against civilians? Many irregular civil wars involve civilian defense militias, i.e., informal civilian groups that cooperate with the state military to protect their communities. Despite a burgeoning literature on militias in civil wars, research on variation in militia emergence and protective effects remains limited. Drawing on field research in northeastern Nigeria's Boko Haram conflict, we explain how local variation in militia formation shapes militias' protective effects against rebel violence. We argue that when repressive conflict conditions in state-dominated areas create incentives for civilian violent resistance, a community's collective action capacity, defined by local leadership and social cohesion, determines whether militias are community-initiated or imposed by state forces. Communities with high-capacity form community-initiated militias and maintain social control over their activities, which enables militias to effectively protect civilians against rebel violence. By contrast, communities with low capacity often host state-initiated militias and struggle to establish social control over their members, which renders them ineffective against rebels. Our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of civilian protective agency by showing that the capacities enabling neutrality and nonviolent resistance can also empower communities to form militias that effectively resist rebel violence.

• Buba, Imrana Alhaji (2023). Civilian Protection Payment and the Escalation of Violence against Civilians in Northwestern Nigeria. Global Studies Quarterly. 3(2), s. 1–15. doi: 10.1093/isagsq/ksad033. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  How do civilian protection payments to militias affect the dynamics of communal conflict? Building on the literature on communal conflict, civilian agency, rebel taxation, and criminal extortion, I argue that civilian protection payment is not a sustainable self-protection strategy. Civilian protection payment refers to an arrangement whereby communities pay levies to militias for protection against attacks, often buying temporary safety. Drawing on fieldwork in Nigeria’s conflict-ridden northwest region, I inductively build a theory that identifies two pathways that explain how protection payments transform into extortion and contribute to the escalation of militia violence: acquiescence or resistance. The acquiescence pathway shows how militias increase predation by demanding ever higher payments. The resistance pathway theorizes militias’ violent retaliation to punish communities that refuse to pay, instilling fear in communities that may be considering resisting and justifying their protection role for those communities that pay. The article improves our understanding of the unintended negative consequences of civilian self-protection and changing dynamics of conflict in northwestern Nigeria.

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• Buba, Imrana Alhaji (2024). A Closer Look at Civilian Protection: A Comparative Review of Two Paradigmatic Works. International Peacekeeping. ISSN 1353-3312. 32(2). doi: 10.1080/13533312.2024.2404913. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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