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Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, PhD

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Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob is the Panitza Memorial Endowed Executive Director of the Center for Information, Democracy, and Citizenship at the American University in Bulgaria. He recently served as the Under-Secretary-General for Research, Evaluation, and Foresight at the Organisation of Southern Cooperation (OSC). He was the Dean of Graduate School and Research at the American University of Nigeria (AUN) and previously held academic appointments at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University and the Department of International Studies at Dickinson College.

NEW PUBLICATION: Researching Violent Extremism: Considerations, Reflections, and Perspectives
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It was a pleasure to work with co-editors Kateira Aryaeinejad, Alastair Reed (both of the United States Institute of Peace) and Emma Heywood (University of Sheffield) as well as a diverse group of scholars, policymakers and practitioners on this important collection of essays and reflections on Violent Extremism research. The volume underscores the importance of quality research to good policy and programming. It is a must-read for anyone interested in Violent Extremism research and donor-funded research in general, including the challenges of data collection, choosing research and analysis methods, dynamics of researcher identity and intersectionality, the complex power relationships between researchers and funders, managing and building research relationships, pathways to research impact on policy and practice, etc. 

 

Abstract

As the nature of violent extremism continues to evolve—both locally and globally—research is essential in our efforts to craft better policy and programming aimed at preventing and addressing it. Research provides information that can help answer some of our most pressing questions about the phenomenon so that we can craft informed and contextually appropriate solutions and avoid potentially negative outcomes. However, while the body of knowledge from research on violent extremism has notably increased and expanded, there is still more to know, learn, and understand, especially given the pace at which global and local dynamics evolve.

Follow the link below to read more:

https://doi.org/10.37805/rve2023.1.

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Suggested Citation: Aryaeinejad, Kateira, Alastair Reed, Emma Heywood, and Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, eds. Researching Violent Extremism: Considerations, Reflections, and Perspectives. Washington, DC: RESOLVE Network, 2023.

 

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UN Peacekeeping Missions are facing a Crisis of Legitimacy in Africa: Here is how influence operations can help 
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UN peacekeepers are facing an increasingly hostile environment in Africa.  The Stabilization Missions in Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo are facing crises of legitimacy with significant consequences on the UN’s broader influence and credibility. In this opinion article for the Information Professionals Association, I argue that legitimacy, influence, and power all go hand in hand and that no UN mission can function adequately without all three. I discuss why UN peacekeeping needs a coherent influence strategy.

Beyond Grades: Advancing Global Learning through Personal and Social Responsibility  
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In 2016, I collaborated with Dr. Wajiha Raza Rizvi at Forman Christian College (a Chartered University) in Pakistan, to deliver a connected course on Peace Journalism, which we co-taught online using Webex. The course connected my class in Nigeria and Dr. Rizvi's class in Pakistan and was part of the Globally Connected Course program of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance – an international partnership of colleges and universities advancing higher education in the liberal arts tradition.  It required students to work on issues in each other's national context: honor killings in Pakistan and Boko Haram’s war on education (particularly for girls) in northeast Nigeria. The course helped students recognize their personal and social responsibility to understand and address global challenges in the local context and how their experiences could inform each other’s perspectives. Students in the two classes worked collaboratively on group projects, including news writing and production, documentaries, and research paper assignments.  The course also featured guest lectures from Bushra Khaliq – Executive Director of Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) and Columbia University’s Professor Judith Matloff.

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Five years since the connected course, and after hearing from former students (who are now graduates), Dr. Rizvi and I reflect on the lessons learned and the pedagogical principles that informed our work. We discuss how we inspired students to collaborate and focus on their social and personal responsibilities, instead of competing for grades.  Read it in our chapter contribution, “Beyond Grades: Advancing Global Learning through Personal and Social Responsibility in a Globally Connected Peace Journalism Course"  in The Wiley Handbook of Collaborative Online Learning and Global Engagement, edited by Deirdre Johnston and Irene López.  The book is a timely contribution to the rapidly evolving body of knowledge on online education and pedagogy. 

Nigeria’s Mega Problems: The five megatrends that will shape Nigeria’s future
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In just over a decade, Nigeria - Africa's largest economy and most populous country - will have some of the highest concentrations of young people in the world. Currently, 43 per cent of Nigeria’s population is aged 0 – 14 years compared with the global average of 25 per cent. In this Op-ed series for Nigeria's Premium Times Newspaper, I explore the five megatrends that will transform Nigeria's future: climate change and resource scarcity; hybridized religiosity; limited access to quality education; and increasing mobile phone ownership and internet access. These megatrends reinforce each other through various interlinkages. Climate change for example poses complex threats with potentially disruptive effects on economic growth, health, food security, and peace. Youth population growth has implications on economic growth as well as food security, migration, peace, and stability. How Nigeria deals with these megatrends will determine the future of the country. This first article focuses on youth population growth and its implications for Nigeria.

Read the article here. 

Countermeasures to propaganda: a strategy for countering extremist religious beliefs 
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My book chapter in the Edward Elgar Research Handbook on Political Propaganda, edited by Gary D. Rawnsley, et al, contributes to contemporary debates on the nature of impacts of counter-narrative campaigns. The editors dedicate the volume to three of my intellectual heroes - all legends in the field: Professor Nicholas Pronay who founded the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds where I studied, Professor Philip M. Taylor (1954-2010) who was my doctoral supervisor and Professor Jay Blumler (1924-2021) whose towering body of work greatly influenced my research interest at Leeds.   

Here are some excerpts:

One of the fundamental findings that emerged from our formative survey was the role of the religious Hero, defined here as the person that symbolises the absoluteness of religious text and through whom believers establish a vicarious primordial relationship with their religious beliefs. I use Hero here in a similar way as Martin Heidegger in his exposition on the choosing of a hero: a deliberate, intentional decision to make one’s life a replication of an original authentic life (Heidegger, 1980).  The life of Jesus Christ, for example, is the quintessentially authentic life after which Christians seek to pattern their lives.   The Heideggerian Hero, as used here, inspires devotion and propels believers into a mechanical, amorphous collective abnegation of personal will and agency in favour of a collective unified faith that modulates personal and collective behaviour. In modelling the Hero's devotion to the letter, the believer models scriptural living.  Heroes are not just faith leaders. They wield enormous personal and social influence and domination, as they are associated with scriptural texts and, by extension, religious beliefs. The propaganda of the religious Hero is contained in the human face and form that they give to scripture through their absolute devotion to doctrinal beliefs. This bestows enormous powers and influence on them, as they become the standard and authority for the right form of religious behaviour.  ... The Hero may not necessarily be the traditionally recognised religious leader. ... The misstep of working with 'moderate' religious leaders in countering violent extremism is that the moderate leader, though he may be the Emir, Sultan, or an established cleric, lacks the patrimonial authority that true believers look up to for standards and patterns for the manifest expression of their beliefs.  ... In its patrimonial form, absolute religious beliefs mutate into systems of social control, domination, and rewards.  Scriptural injunctions, symbolised and signified by the most religious Heroes, penetrate the society, not through mainstream or conventional pipelines such as mosques or churches, mainstream media, family units, etc., but through diffused repetitions of behaviours, codes and mores which eventually become standards of religious behaviour. In this extended form, absolutist beliefs go beyond the regular religious systems, personalities, or institutions that modulate religious practices and performances in society. 

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Suggested Citation: Jacob. J.U. (2021). 'Countermeasures to Extremist Propaganda:  a strategy for countering absolutist religious beliefs in northeast Nigeria'. In: G. Rawnley, Y. Ma, & K. Pothong (eds.) Research Handbook on Political Propaganda. Edward Elgar, London.

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Outsourcing Public Diplomacy Operations: Neoliberalism and the Communications of the United Nations since the End of the Cold War
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My chapter in The Frontiers of Public Diplomacy: Hegemony, Morality and Power in the International Sphere focuses on the development of public diplomacy activities by the United Nations. I argue that neoliberal pivots within the UN have had negative consequences for its public diplomacy programs. The chapter provides a critical analysis of two outsourced partners of UN public diplomacy, namely, Fondation Hirondelle and the global PR firm Bell Pottinger. 

Here are some excerpts: 

The UN has been an outwardly communicating organisation since its inauguration in 1945 and throughout its existence those communications have been keen to reflect the competing and prevailing trends of global hegemony. This includes the UN’s own efforts at public diplomacy: mass communications that have primarily accompanied their peacekeeping and conflict resolution tasks and general explanation and legitimation of itself and its purpose to the world. However, the UN spent the first forty-five years of its life being largely superseded by the bi-polar power structures and major events of the Cold War, which only rarely provided opportunity for the organisation to take a lead role. This changed in the 1990s though as the end of the Cold War opened potential windows of opportunity for the UN to assert itself on international affairs in ways that had not existed before. Nevertheless, it is the argument of this chapter that, at the very moment when the UN had an opportunity to lead international actors into a furthering of their moral gaze, neoliberal pivots within the organisation curtailed the prospect of that becoming a positive reality. Indeed, such was the organisation’s coveting of neoliberalism as it spread around the world, the changes that it ultimately made sabotaged much of the prospect for an advancement of the role of morality and ethics within global affairs that the UN had been well-placed to lead. Read more excerpts here.

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Suggested Citation: Jacob J. U. (2021). 'Outsourcing Public Diplomacy Operations: Neoliberalism and the Communications of the United Nations since the End of the Cold War'.  In: Alexander, C. (ed.) The Frontiers of Public Diplomacy: Hegemony, Morality and Power in the International Sphere (1st ed.). Routledge, London.

Uses and Abuses: How increased Social Media usage threatens Nigeria’s democracy
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Nigerians spend an average of 3 hours 41 minutes daily on social media. The country has the largest mobile phone connection and social media users in Africa.   Last summer, the Nigerian government placed an indefinite ban on Twitter, citing misinformation and fake news on the platform, which it said undermines Nigeria's corporate existence.  In my article for Nigeria's Premium Times, I write about the opportunities and perils of social media uses in the country. I argue that social media can indeed be a threat, however, banning Twitter is not the solution.  The regulatory framework should focus on algorithmic oversight so they are not left entirely to the untrustworthy capitalist hands of powerful social media owners. Read the article here. 

USAID and World Bank adopt the Transactional Radio Instruction model to support COVID-19 education continuity in West Africa
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The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Bank have adopted the Transactional Radio Instruction (TRI) model to support distance learning for 500,000 children in northeast Nigeria.  The project is part of USAID's Strengthening Education in Northeast Nigeria (SENSE) activity implemented by the American University in Nigeria (AUN) in coordination with the World Bank’s Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) activity and the State Universal Basic Education Boards of Adamawa and Gombe States. Both states have experienced significant educational deprivation and disruption due to extremist violence and the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The TRI model of radio instruction weaves problem-based lessons into radio drama along with synched workbooks to help learners overcome cognitive and cultural barriers to their learning. I led the development of TRI at AUN as part of a USAID-funded Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) project.  Visit here for a transmedia narrative of the first TRI deployment.

The Cognitive Crucible Podcast
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I recently dropped by the Cognitive Crucible - a podcast of the Information Professionals Association - to talk about my work and some critical topics in strategic communication.  I argue that while messaging is important in any counternarrative or broader strategic communication campaign, greater attention should be paid to understanding the networked influences that drive long-term changes to social norms. Follow this link to listen in: https://information-professionals.org/.../cognitive.../ 

 

The Public Information and Strategic Communication Module of the UN's Integrated DDR Standards
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On Thursday, June 25th, 2020, I facilitated a joint virtual roundtable consultation by the DDR Section of the Office of Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI), Department of Peace Operations at the UN, and academic experts. The roundtable brought scholars together with UN policymakers and DDR practitioners from the field to discuss how public information and strategic communication can contribute to the DDR process.

Continue reading.

 

A New Master’s Program in Managing Complex Disasters at Dickinson College

Dickinson College has launched a new Master's Program in Managing Complex Disasters.  Building on Dickinson's long-standing partnership with the US Army War College, the program is the first of its kind in the world.  It provides those in government, public health, disaster response organizations, humanitarian and military service the knowledge and experience to understand the causes of complex challenges and develop strategic and innovative solutions to meet those challenges.

I am excited to be on the program's highly esteemed faculty. This spring, I will teach Influence Operations in the Age of Networks. Working through various case studies and scenarios, students will develop the knowledge and skills necessary to plan and analyze influence operations and counter their threats.  Visit here to learn more.

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Transactional Radio Instruction: Improving Educational Outcomes for Children in Conflict Zones
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Schools are one of the first institutional casualties of war. It is a lot worse when the principal belligerent is ideologically opposed to education. Pupils and teachers, school buildings, laboratories, and libraries, all become targets of war. In the book, Transactional Radio Instruction: Improving Educational Outcomes for Children in Conflict Zones, Professor Margee Ensign and I advance an education-in-emergency strategy based on a combination of radio and mobile tablets in situations of complex emergencies when schools have been shut down and education disrupted.  We draw on our experience in northeast Nigeria - at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency - when we developed an educational intervention program to ensure education continuity for thousands of displaced children.

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Abstract: This book offers an important addition to the growing literature on education in emergencies. In war situations or in the wake of natural disasters, children’s education is often significantly disrupted. This book demonstrates how the authors used radio and mobile technologies to improve educational outcomes for over 20,000 displaced and out-of-school children in northeast Nigeria at the height of the Boko Haram insurgency. Interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) programs typically interact with a functional classroom teacher. However, the transactional radio instruction strategy presented provides high-quality, safe, and sensitive education in war-torn societies, where there are no schools or teachers. Summarizing the research and lessons learned from a USAID-funded Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA) project in Boko Haram-ravaged northeast Nigeria, the book describes in detail an education-in-emergency strategy based on a “whole of community” approach, with radio and mobile tablets at its core. 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32369-1

 

On the 'VIP Show' with Linord

I recently sat down with the VOA's Linord Moudou in her VIP Show to talk about a range of issues and how my background and upbringing has influenced my work.

RESOLVE Network Research on Secularism and Politics of Religion in the Lake Chad Basin

The third Annual Researching Solutions to Violent Extremism (RESOLVE) Network Global Forum at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) explored new approaches in Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) research.  I facilitated a salon discussion featuring RESOLVE Network Country Fellows and Principal Investigators from the Lake Chad region. We discussed findings from our three-country study on secularism and the politics of religion in higher education spaces.  The project covered Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria.

To find out more and watch the entire Forum visit https://www.usip.org/events/resolve-network-2018-global-forum   

Working with women to prevent extremism using a Community Extremism Risk Assessment and Early Warning app: Lessons Learned
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The participation of local women in peacemaking and conflict prevention (in line with UNSCR 1325) should be given higher priority. My work, along with a continually growing body of research, has shown the importance of women's involvement in peace and security issues.  In my work on this project, I was amazed at how incredibly informed, engaged, and committed women were in finding solutions to the problem of radicalization in their communities.  

 

Using a community-based participatory action process, I worked with 60 women leaders from 60 communities in Northeast Nigeria to develop a new community extremism risk assessment (CERA) tool. The tool is used to systematically identify individuals at risk of joining Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs). The 60 women all had one thing in common: a known person from their community had joined Boko Haram.  


Over three days, the women worked together in teams to discuss the common characteristics demonstrated by the persons they knew who had joined Boko Haram, the timelines in which certain behaviors were observed, their families, their close associates and influencers, and various other push and pull factors. After identifying the risk factors and their indicators, the women then ranked them by order of gravity and assigned weights for each factor.  I should add that the risk factors they identified and ranked high were different from those prevalent in literature on risk factors associated with radicalization. The variance can be explained in many ways. Still, for me, it confirmed the need for researchers, international organizations, national governments, and civil society organizations to give local women a louder voice and more robust agency in the research and interventions that affect their lives and communities.  CERA was built based on the risk factors and indicators the women identified. 

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CERA, which has been developed into a mobile app, is used as part of the project, Women Action to Combat Violent Extremism and Radicalism in Northeast Nigeria (WACVERN). WACVERN is supported with funding from the USAID's Nigeria Regional Transition Initiative and Nigeria's North East Regional Initiative (NERI).

 

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