The death of political possibility? Reading State and society in Nigeria 40 years on
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11904083 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Portia Roelofs (0000-0001-6174-9478, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 171 |
| Publication date | 2022-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Review of African Political Economy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0305-6244 • E-ISSN: 1740-1720 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/03056244.2022.2033521 |
| OpenAlex | W4210918191 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
In this 2019 reboot of his collection of essays from the 1970s, Gavin Williams traces the lingering the impact of colonialism and international capital on Nigeria’s political economy, the shaky development of an indigenous industrial class and the changing role of the state in national development. However, reading the book, it is not clear what such an analysis is for . Is it intended as a diagnosis? An indictment? Williams leftist commitments are clear, but amid the painstaking analysis one can ask: what is the point of studying politics? In this review article the author unpicks Williams’ at times contradictory answers to this question and argues that the book demonstrates the relevance of mid twentieth-century Nigerian politics to readers today. She poses the question of how we can navigate the possibility and risks of newly volatile twenty-first-century politics, unchained as it is from the liberal orthodoxy of the past 40 years
Capital (architecture · Class analysis · Colonialism · Indictment · Indigenous · Left-wing politics · Neoliberalism (international relations · Orthodoxy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Reading (process · Reboot · Sociology · State (computer science · History · Law · Political and Economic history of UK and US · Race, History, and American Society
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |