Theory and Research Process in Social Sciences in Nigeria: A Synthesis and Evaluation of the State of Debate in Political Science

Abstract

The disciplinary matrix of politics has been at the epicentre of the theoretical and epistemic ferment which has characterized the social sciences in the past forty years. This epistemic ferment found cogent expression in the Nigerian social sciences in the!980s and 1990s, as could be seen in the works of a number of scholars. By and large, however, the ‘search for a paradigm’ an inclusive attempt to comprehend the theory and practice of states’ behaviour which has characterized endeavours in the political science discipline, in the West and East is still an exception rather than the rule in the literature concerning Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. The ‘golden age’ of contemporary political analysis involving the best and brightest in both East and West is still a distant future horizon for Nigeria. This paper argues that the reason for this epistemic ‘underdevelopment’ of political science in Nigeria has multiple causes and is organically linked to generational thought forces which devalue theory and methoiiin political science, castigate Marxist epistemology and seek through intimidation to make ‘disciples’ rather than ‘scholars’ out of the young ‘initiates’ into the discipline.