"The Roots of Political Instability in an Artificial "Nation-State
The Case of Nigeria
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12836410 |
|---|---|
| Authors | E C Ejiogu (0000-0002-8194-6046, University of Maryland, College Park, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 323-342 |
| Publication date | 2001-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1569-1322 • E-ISSN: 1569-1330 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/156851801317046220 |
| OpenAlex | W2055891204 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
The Nigerian nation-state is an artificial project of European 19th century colonial endeavor in Africa. As a cobbled variety of the state in Europe and North America, its pretence to the concept of state has not spared it from the contradictions of its awkward past. The immediate implication of this failure is the persistence of political instability. In this paper, I argue that as a state, its construction is not only flawed and absurd, it has remained unsuccessful as well. The primary reason for that lies in the respective refusal by both the British and the Caliphate undertakers of the Nigerian colonial state and its post-colonial successor to acknowledge the resilience of the distinct groups and identities that were forced into Nigeria. I also argue here for a new paradigm that locates political conflict and instability in Africa within the dialectic of state-civil society dissonance situated in a a context-specific articulation of three concepts: construction, entrenchment, and transformation. I argue further that nation-states are stable or unstable to the extent that they are able to fulfil the tasks of construction, entrenchment, and transformation. That solution to Nigeria's political instability lies in first by unraveling its present constitution, and secondly by the evolution of a new entity which accepts a new dialogue that proposes a challenge beyond formal construction of state apparatuses to an active relationship of entrenchment and transformation
Colonialism · Constitution · Context (archaeology · Dialectic · Epistemology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · African cultural and philosophical studies · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Global Political and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy
Democracy in America
Class, Ethnicity and Democracy in Nigeria
Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany
The politics of cultural pluralism
Coercion, capital, and European states, AD 990-1992
Nigeria
State Power and Social Forces
Nigerian Political Parties
Military Organization and Society
The Web of World Politics
Federalism and the balance of political power in Nigeria
Federalism in Nigeria
Nigerian politics in perspective
States and Social Revolutions
Contradictions in the Nigerian Political System
The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law
Ibo Village Affairs
The autonomous power of the state
States and Social Revolutions
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,13 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |