State power, autarchy, and political conquest in Nigerian federalism / Kalu N. Kalu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kalu, Kalu Ndukwe.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Federal government--Nigeria.

Federal government.

Nigeria.

Nigeria--Politics and government.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

xix, 309 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : Lexington Books, [2008]

Summary:

State Power, Autarchy, and Political Conquest in Nigerian Federalism shows how specific historical events and societal forces within Nigeria transcend the choices its political leaders have made to influence the course of the state's political development. Kalu N. Kalu describes a variety of factors that have contributed to the challenges facing state-building and political institutions in Nigeria. Chief among them are the nature of interest aggregation, the dynamics of conflict, and the patterns of state intervention in matters dealing with secularism, distributive politics, economy, security, and autonomy. Of critical importance is a penetrating analysis of how state power could become too pervasive, and how emergent institutional designs can work against the very processes necessary for the construction of an enduring political ethos.

Kalu succeeds in constructing a more organic conception of political development of Nigeria by creating a model based on rentier politics that captures the critical relationship between state power and economy. By doing so, he goes beyond current scholarship about Nigeria and demonstrates the need for a restructuring of its institutions, offering insight into an enduring narrative that continues to shape Nigerian politics.

Contents:

Political Map of Nigeria xiii

1 Introduction: A Prolegomenon on State and Governance 1

2 Analytical Frameworks of State Formation 9

3 History and Evolutionary Schisms 33

4 Restless Federalism: Critical Arguments on Conflict and Governance 51

5 The Geopolitics of Religion: Conflated Origins of Ethnic Crisis 65

6 The Praetorian Orthodoxy: Pathways to Civic Soldiering 89

7 Rentier Politics: The Confluence of Power and Economics 121

8 The Garrison State: Bridging Civil-Military Transitions 145

9 Elections and Electioneering: On the Democratic Deficit 161

10 The Niger Delta: A Platform Under Duress 173

11 Constitutionalism and Political Development 187

12 Embedding African Democracy and Development: The Imperative of Institutional Capital 199

Appendix A Roll Call and Votes on 2007 Presidential Elections 219

Appendix B Note from Robert A. Dahl, Renowned Political Scientist of the Twenty-first Century 223

Appendix C Basic Pitfalls of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution: A Commentary of Selected Sections (as Abbreviated) 225.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-295) and index.

ISBN:

9780739119556

0739119559

OCLC:

213223090