Staging transparency
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (Neiti) and the spectacle of Nigeria’s extractive industry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13068175 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Walid El Hamad (0000-0001-7513-8301, corresponding author), Lee Moerman (0000-0001-7973-5699, University of Wollongong), Sanja Pupovac (0000-0001-6109-4213, University of Wollongong) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Pages | 101859-101859 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-23 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Extractive Industries and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2214-790X • E-ISSN: 2214-7918 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.exis.2026.101859 |
| OpenAlex | W7125645689 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 59 |
This paper examines how the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI), as a hybrid organisation, performs transparency to achieve accountability by multiple conflicting audiences. Using a critical dramaturgical lens, the paper combines Guy Debord’s Theory of the Spectacle with Erving Goffman’s frontstage/backstage framework to analyse how transparency is staged in NEITI’s financial disclosures. While NEITI was established to improve governance in Nigeria’s extractive sector this paper finds that NEITI Reports stage a desirable image of transparency and accountability. However, these Reports often obscure ongoing systemic issues including corruption, revenue mismanagement, and unequal wealth distribution. These disclosures operate as a frontstage performance that reassures powerful international audiences while masking the structural challenges experienced by local communities. The resulting gap between appearance and reality reinforces existing power relations rather than transforming them. The findings suggest that NEITI’s transparency serves more as a governance theatre than as a mechanism for genuine accountability. By framing transparency as a spectacle, this paper offers new insights into the limitations of accountability initiatives in contexts marked by complex political and institutional dynamics. It contributes to the extractive industries literature by extending the concept of impression management to performative transparency within hybrid accountability regimes.
Natural resource · Spectacle · Transparency (behavior · Mining and Resource Management · Natural Resources and Economic Development · Oil, Gas, and Environmental Issues
Corporate Communication and Impression Management – New Perspectives Why Companies Engage in Corporate Social Reporting
Sustainability reports as simulacra? A counter-account of A and A+ GRI reports
Advancing Research on Hybrid Organizing – Insights from the Study of Social Enterprises
Analysing and Assessing Accountability
Social Accountability, Ethics, and the Occupy Wall Street Protests
The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (Neiti)
Transparency in Resource Governance
Bridging the accountability gap in hybrid organizations
The tyranny of light
Understanding the Complex Dynamics of Transparency
Corruption fights back
Norm Diffusion and Reputation
Neoliberal nature and the nature of neoliberalism
Debord's World
Performative Agency
| Highly cited | No |
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