Laws of Attraction
June 2021
Laws of Attraction
Northern Benin and risk of violent extremist spillover
Kars de Bruijne

This is a joint report produced by the Conflict Research Unit of Clingendael - the Netherlands Institute of International Relations in partnership with the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).

The author wishes to thank Nizar Touhami Chahdi for excellent research assistance. Special thanks go to Héni Nsaibia, who acted as a sounding board and shared his meticulous work on tracking the movements of violent extremist organisations. Thanks to Jules Duhamel for designing the visuals. The report benefitted from input from Fransje Molenaar, Johannes Claes, Anna Schmauder, Imane Karimou and Elliot Bynum, five reviewers and several anonymous contributors.

About the author


Kars de Bruijne is a Senior Research Fellow with the Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit and a former Senior Researcher at ACLED.

Photo credits

© Julien Gerard