Foreign Military Presence and State Legitimacy in Niger

In this project, I examine the influence of foreign military presence in Niger on the state's ability to legitimate itself to the Nigerien population. Between 2013 and 2023, Niger experienced a rapid increase in the presence of foreign militaries. Part of this presence was to support the French counterterrorism operation in Mali but it was also part of a bigger trend in the militarisation of Africa. According to dominant state legitimacy theory used in political science and international development, the Nigerien state should have enjoyed widespread legitimacy. Based on a contractarian understanding of state/society relations, the Nigerien state seemed to be providing the ingredients that would ensure that citizens would consent to its authority. However, when there was a coup in 2023, most Nigeriens did not express outrage about the unconstitutional power grab and the arrest of their democratically elected leader. In this project, I explore how foreign military presence precipitated a decline in the legitimacy of the democratic state in Niger. This happened through several mechanisms. First foreign military presence forced an attempt to redefine sovereignty by the Nigerien government and the international community. In the process, the meaning of sovereignty became increasingly destabilised as it became a site of intense political struggle. Second, the presence of foreign militaries was associated with an increase in attacks by terrorist groups. I find that strategies used as part of the Global War on Terror contributed to this increase in attacks. Thirdly, conspiracy theories were used to explain the paradoxical increase in attacks while foreign militaries increased. These conspiracy theories undermined the state's ability to control a meta narrative about itself and the presence of foreign militaries.