Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and Non-State Armed Groups in Nigeria: A Constructivist International Relations Analysis

This study applies constructivist international relations theory to analyse the challenge posed to Nigerian sovereignty and territorial integrity by multiple non-state armed groups including Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province, IPOB's Eastern Security Network, and various banditry and militia formations. Nigeria's post-Cold War security environment is characterised by a paradox of formal sovereign recognition coexisting with significant territorial control losses and governance voids, a phenomenon that challenges conventional international relations sovereignty theory. Drawing on constructivist international relations, sovereignty studies, and recent non-state armed groups literature from 2019 to 2024, the study employs a critical constructivist research design. Constructivist discourse analysis is applied to 80 elite interviews with security policymakers, international relations scholars, retired military generals, and regional governance experts drawn from the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, the Institute for Security Studies, and academic institutions across Nigeria. Primary source document analysis covers government white papers, security legislation, and international treaties. The study's theoretical contribution is the Layered Sovereignty Contestation Framework, which theorises how non-state armed groups engage in iterative sovereignty contestation across three registers: territorial, governance legitimacy, and symbolic sovereignty, each requiring distinct analytical and policy responses. This framework advances constructivist sovereignty theory by disaggregating sovereignty dimensions and modelling their interactive dynamics in post-colonial multi-ethnic states. Findings contribute original insights to international relations theory, Nigerian security studies, and comparative territorial governance scholarship. Keywords: sovereignty, territorial integrity, non-state armed groups, constructivism, Nigeria