A QUARANTINE FOR THE AFRICAN STATES?
The 1950s and 1960s witnessed the ascendancy of the state in theoretical and policy considerations of the African predicament, with a lot of effort being sunk into attempts to strengthen further relevant institutions as a way out of the legacy of underdevelopment. By way of contrast, the 1970s and 1980s were basically decades of disenchantment, given the reality of the profligacy, fragility, and non-performance of the African state and its managers. What was then witnessed was a conceptual and policy shift away from concerns over how to build the capacity of the state, mainly in order to mould and incorporate society in the march towards development, to a perspective informed by increasing evidence of the state's incoherence, incapacitation, and weaknesses. The 1990s, therefore, appear set to complete the swing of this intellectual and policy pendulum away from the African state towards the terrain of civil society, in the expectation that this will provide an alternate resource base for engineering and sustaining the development of the continent. Symbolically enough, the decade has opened with the publication of a volume whose editors and contributors have not only come down decidedly on the side of society, but who often appear to call for the state to be quarantined in order to facilitate meaningful development. Their collection of essays is the outcome of a 1985-6 workshop in political theory and policy analysis, led by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom at Indiana University, and is understandably informed by insights drawn from their work on theories of collective action, organisational behaviour, and public administration.
Violence and National Development in Nigeria: The Political Economy of Youth Restiveness in the Niger Delta
One element in the contradictions underpinning Nigeria's development crisis is the marginalisation of the youth. This article examines the factors that influence youth restiveness in Nigeria's Niger Delta region. It discusses the impact of conservative elite politics and the oil-centric political economy characterised by the impoverishment, neglect and the repression of the oil-producing communities on the youth in the region. The article raises pertinent questions on the violence–development dialectic, drawing upon the context, dynamics, explanations and impact of youth violence in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta. It examines the contradictions and injustices existing against the ethnic minorities of the oil-bearing communities in the region, from the centralisation of oil revenues by the federal centre and how these have generated marginalisation and violent conflict in the region. Detailing the repressive responses by the Nigerian state and the forms of violence that have occurred in the region between 1999 and 2007, the article discusses the implications of youth violence in the oil-rich Niger Delta for national development in Nigeria. It provides a context for understanding the connection between youth involvement in violent conflict and its deleterious impact on Nigeria's development. Tapping into issues of ethnicity and high-stake elite politics, it locates violent youth behaviour in the politics of exclusion and proffers suggestions for restoring the trust of marginalised youth as a necessary step toward development and peace in Nigeria.
Agricultural Development in Africa
This report is based on papers presented at the Conference on Agricultural Research Priorities for Economic Development in Africa held in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in April, 1968. The author is Professor of Geography and Dean of the Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.