Border insecurity and displacement risk in pre-coup Niger: A multi-actor, commune-linked baseline

This is a preprint of a manuscript submitted to Third World Quarterly. The manuscript has not yet undergone peer review.----------------------------------------------------------------This study examines how border insecurity and displacement risk were perceived and assessed in Niger in the period preceding the July 2023 coup. Drawing on linked population, authority, and site-visit data collected across multiple communes in late 2022, the analysis compares population-reported insecurity with local authority security assessments within the same locations. The results show that insecurity was widely perceived by both populations and authorities, with no commune assessed as fully secure. However, assessments diverged systematically in both intensity and spatial ordering. P opulation-reported insecurity was generally higher and more dispersed, while authority assessments were compressed and less sharply differentiated across space. Misalignment between the two perspectives was widespread, directional, and spatially patterned, persisting even when data were aggregated to the department level. Site-visit observations indicate that these divergences cannot be reduced to simple differences in observable facility presence. Rather than treating divergence as measurement error, the study interprets misalignment as a structural feature of security diagnostics in fragile, border-adjacent contexts. By providing a rare pre-coup baseline and operationalising a multi-actor, location-linked approach, the study contributes to debates on lived governance, perception gaps, and the limits of single-perspective insecurity assessments.