Nascent Democracy Research Articles

Politics of Resource Control and Revenue Allocation: Implications for the Sustenance of Democracy in Nigeria

The agitation for the control of resources by the oil producing states in the Niger-Delta area is one of the major challenges confronting the nation and our nascent democracy. This controversial issue has re-surfaced during the recently concluded National Conference held between April and August 2014. The delegates from the oil producing states (south-south) demanded for between 25.5% to 50% derivation funding, which was not approve by the conference members. This paper analyses the nature and scope of this agitation and its implications for the sustenance of democratic federal system in Nigeria. The problem of mass poverty and unemployment among youths in Nigeria coupled with collapse of infrastructure, environmental degradation and pauperization of land in the Niger - Delta due to the activities of oil companies were the factors responsible for the trend. The main thrust of the recommendations hinged on ensuring a reasonable and fair sharing formula for the country’s resources, and making adequate compensation to the people of the area through infrastructural development by both governments and the participating oil companies.

Strategies for Effective Governance in Nigeria: University of Benin in Focus

This paper presents strategies for effective governance in Nigeria with emphasis on the University of Benin.The question of good and effective governance has captured the attention of University Managers. Governing Councils of Universities have also made this issue a critical prerequisite in their quest for excellence. Accordingly, the issue of effective governance has gained universal currency as nations and international institutions seek appropriate mechanisms to enhance the role of government by making it more transparent, accountable, responsive and responsible to the constituencies in the 21st century. In the Nigeria nation, the greatest obstacle to the nascent democracy include the pervasive insecurity of lives and property, as evidenced by the spate of armed robbery attacks, political assassinations, power distribution coupled with the seeming helplessness of security agencies to handle criminal acts. The situation is worsened by the increasing number of unemployed Nigerians some of whom are ready recruits for criminal activities. The above statement from an editorial comment by a national daily in Nigeria epitomizes the central focus of this paper, the aim of which is to strategize on the effective governance in Nigeria nation. The paper painstakingly appraised many of these issues and concluded that all stakeholders in the federal polity should thread softly, be objective, rational, altruistic and magnanimous in order not to make the existence of true federalism (social, political and economic cohesive existence of the people, peace and tranquility) a fleeting illusion and a mirage. It also focused on critical issues of delegation of authority, why some leaders fail to delegate, the kind of crisis it has generated and the kind of measures that can ameliorate the ugly trend.Key words: Governance, Politics, Council, Society, Nigeria, State.

An Assessment of Religious Threats to Security and Survival of Democracy in Nigeria: A Case Study of the Incessant Killings of Igbos in Some Selected Northern States

AbstractReligious threats continue to pose a real threat to security and survival of the nascent democracy in Nigeria, especially with the widespread and incessant killings of Igbos in some selected Northern States. Bombs explode regularly, killing huge numbers of people, especially at crowded squares in these states. Igbos who, dominate the Northern commercial landscape, have in their large numbers have been one of the worst hit. And one of the more notorious groups, the Boko Haram, the ultraviolent Islamic militant group that condemns western education, has always accepted responsibility for the killings. Their unwholesome activities which, have been impacting negatively on the various segments of society; creating the psychological basis for arbitrariness are compounded by the intense use of State authority by an effective minority of the Northern extraction to cover up and dismiss these detestable killings and abuses as being only the maturation of long festering extremist impulses that run deep in the social reality of Northern Nigeria, while doing nothing to halt the incessant atrocities against Igbos, as if they are responsible for the decades of failed government and elite delinquency finally ripening into social chaos therein. Thus, the main thrust of this paper is to assess religious threats to security and democracy in Nigeria with special focus on the incessant killings of Igbos. To achieve the purpose of this study, four research hypotheses and two theories, the Strain and differential association theories are used as theoretical framework to guide the study. Literatures related to the variables are reviewed including the adoption of the survey research and the construction of a four-point Likert type questionnaire to elicit information from a total of 290 respondents who constituted the data for the research. To test the hypotheses, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis Statistical technique was employed. The findings show among others that the group, Boko Haram itself, is an effect and not a cause; a symptom of decades of failed government and elite delinquency in Northern Nigeria and queries the rationale why Igbos should be sacrificed to correct the failings of the Northern elite. In addition, the paper also finds out that religious threat is a clog to the corporate existence of Nigeria despite democratization. As a result, this study recommends that the Federal Government should brace up to whatever are the grievances of the Boko Haram with a view to seeing how its members can be persuaded to renounce their warring posture, allow peace to reign in order to save the country's nascent democracy. Finally, the paper concludes that since Nigeria is a pluralist society, the Government through the mass media should enlighten the people on the essence of peaceful co-existence so as to engender national integration and save the country's nascent democracy.

Scientific Literacy and the South African School Curriculum

The notion of scientific literacy is contested terrain, particularly when the term is used in school curricula. Using a scientific literacy framework of Vision I (covers science products and processes) and Vision II (based on science-related situations as a starting point for discussion), the article analyses the Natural Science (grades 7–9) curricula in South Africa developed and implemented over the past two decades. The Revised National Curriculum Statement (RNCS) and the Curriculum and Policy Statement (CAPS) were scrutinised for indicators of each vision. Findings indicate that, while the RNCS espoused the concept of scientific literacy, the CAPS made little mention of it. While both curricula are dominated by Vision I indicators, particularly science products and processes, the CAPS document focuses almost exclusively on these. The implications of highly specified content and narrow interpretations of scientific literacy have consequences for teacher education and textbooks authors, as well as learners who will exit the school system before grade 10 and who need to be scientifically literate to function effectively as citizens in South Africa's nascent democracy.

Political Godfatherism and Governance in a Developing Democracy: Insight from Nigeria

This paper focuses on political godfatherism and governance in a developing Democracy with special attention to Nigeria. Its staggering posture in Nigerian politics gave rise to the evaluation of the concept and its impact on the politics of the country. The cardinal objective is to investigate whether political godfathersim affect good governance in Nigeria. The study employed descriptive and content analytical method in the analysis of data. The findings of this study indicated that godfatherism has threatened the country’s nascent democracy. It is the position of this study among other things that competitions among godfathers to control state powers and resources through their favoured godsons have denied the electorates the right to elect their preferred candidates, thereby rendering elections ineffective and inconsequential. Besides, the fierce struggle for state power has also resulted in some of the worst electoral violence in the country, in almost all the elections that have been conducted in Nigeria since the inception of the fourth (4th) Republic, 1999 – till date, that godfatherism as practiced in Nigerian polity is a potential threat to the sustenance of democracy. This study therefore recommended that to ensure a government and democratic rule that will bring about societal development and transformation, there should be independent choice of candidates, free and fair election, financial independence of candidates, polity devoid of financial and material inducement of electorates, attitudinal change and positive perception among the team players in Nigerian politics. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n4p137

Alliances, Coalitions and the Weakening of the Party System in Malawi

In nascent democracies, like that in Malawi, with presidential regimes and plurality electoral systems, the emergence of fragmented political party systems is inevitable, characterised by ethnically polarised political behaviour, fragile institutions and minority governments. This ultimately leads to volatile and contentious legislative-executive relations, weak political party cohesion and the stagnation of democratic consolidation. Malawi's system inherently offers neither incentives for coalition formation nor mutual interdependence between the executive and the legislature. Hence, the latent conflicts, persistent governance crises, inertia and grinding executive-legislative confrontations. Among political actors and across minority regimes in Malawi recourse to coalition politics has not been embraced as an optimal democratic instrument and formal strategy for state governability since 1994. The Mutharika minority government (2004-2009), which was persistently frustrated by parliamentary paralysis, survived on the floorcrossing inducements of opposition legislators, extended judicial injunctions and the presidential prorogation of Parliament. In addition, the brief 'experiments' with government coalitions, 'collusions' and electoral alliances weakened cohesion within partner parties and hardly increased national cohesion, but promoted state governability and yielded marginal gains in democratic consolidation. This article argues that political institutions that are designed to encourage formal political coalitions and discourage floorcrossing (parliamentary systems and proportional electoral laws) serve to mitigate against state instability and enhance democratic consolidation.

Tocqueville in Arabia: dilemmas in a democratic age

The Arab Spring, with its calls for sweeping political change, marked the most profound popular uprising in the Middle East for generations. But if the nascent democracies born of these protests are to succeed in the absence of a strong democratic tradition, their success will depend in part on an understanding of how Middle Easterners view themselves, their allegiances to family and religion, and their relationship with the wider world in which they are increasingly integrated. Many of these same questions were raised by Alexis de Tocqueville during his 1831 tour of America, itself then a rising democracy. Joshua Mitchell spent years teaching Tocqueville's classic account, Democracy in America, in America and the Arab Gulf and, with Tocqueville in Arabia, he offers a profound personal take. One of the reasons for the book's widespread popularity in the region is that its commentary on the challenges of democracy and the seemingly contradictory concepts of equality and individuality continue to speak to current debates. While Mitchell's American students tended to value individualism and commercial self-interest, his Middle Eastern students had grave doubts about individualism and a deep suspicion for capitalism, which they saw as risking the destruction of long-held loyalties and obligations. Mitchell describes modern democratic man as becoming what Tocqueville predicted: a distinct kind of humanity that would be increasingly isolated and alone. Whatever their differences, students in both worlds were grappling with a sense of disconnectedness that social media does little to remedy. We live in a time rife with mutual misunderstandings between America and the Middle East, and Tocqueville in Arabia offers a guide to the present, troubled times, leavened by the author's hopes about the future.

Kenya’s 2013 Elections

KeyWords: Kenya; elections; International Criminal Court; democracyKenya managed to conduct passable and relatively peaceful national and local elections in March 2013, the first such elections since the passage of its comprehensively democratic Constitution in August 2010. The relatively smooth transition from the departing Mwai Kibaki administration to the new Uhuru Kenyatta regime has marked a critical step forward from the debacle of state-threatening violence of the 2007 elections, in which more than a thousand people died and an estimated six hundred thousand persons were internally displaced. At the same time the elections, in and of themselves, represented an important step toward implementation of the new Constitution, approved in a special referendum, after voters rejected a draft five years earlier.The relatively violence-free outcome of the 2013 elections, on its face, seemed to offer at least a partial refutation of two literatures critical of conducting competitive, multiparty elections in weak states, as Kenya continues to be regarded.! One influential literature contends that these elections, absent also adequate levels of economic development, risk promoting stateweakening domestic violence and even international conflict (see Snyder 2000; Mansfield & Snyder 2005). The passage of the 2010 Constitution offered an affirmation that state strengthening democratization is possible after severe electoral violence, albeit, in this case, with the aid of international mediation in the form of the Kenya National Development and Reconciliation (KNDR) program. The 2008 KNDR agenda had succeeded in joining the election opponents from the 2007 election in a power sharing agreement fashioned by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his team of Eminent African Personalities. For the new government of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, however, the complex task of furthering progress on the KNDR agenda is now only one of the objectives. The government must also find a way forward in terms of Kenya's goals and the roles it wishes to play in furthering peace and stability in the Horn of Africa, especially in the wake of the terrorist attack in Nairobi in September 2013.The other literature also insists that democracy must follow sequentially after the creation of a strong state and certain levels of economic development (see Lipset 1981; Huntington 1991; Linz & Stepan 1996). As a practical matter, however, with the end of the Cold War, sub-Saharan African countries found themselves confronting a number of challenges simultaneously, including the challenges of Third Wave democratization, the requirements of economic development, and the need for state strengthening after decades of authoritarian rule. Thus, following competitive elections, nascent democracies in Kenya and elsewhere in the region have needed to initiate and reinforce the socioeconomic development and state strengthening that may not have been accomplished beforehand. To what extent did the relatively violence-free 2013 elections indicate that enough of the KNDR agenda had been accomplished, or will the jury still be out on this question until perhaps the next general elections in 2018? Time alone will tell.This commentary will summarize the outcomes of the election and its major accomplishments, and then consider the extent to which Kenya may or may not have managed to create the foundations for the future free, fair, and peaceful elections that are needed to achieve a sustainable democratic state.Election OutcomesIn a crowded field of eight candidates in the presidential election, Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee alliance prevailed, receiving 50.51 percent of the valid votes cast among the 85 percent of the country's 14,352,533 registered voters who turned out. This result barely enabled Kenyatta to escape an obligatory second-round runoff contest with the opposition candidate from the Congress for Reform and Democracy (CORD), Raila Odinga. …

Nepal and Bhutan in 2013

The political stalemate prevailing in Nepal since the dissolution of the first Constituent Assembly (CA) in 2012 ended with the second CA polls in November. Bhutan’s second parliamentary elections in July and the opposition People’s Democratic Party’s victory over the outgoing Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party) were signs of consolidation of Bhutan’s nascent democracy.

Corporate Political Speech: How Nigeria Threw Away the Baby with the Bath Water: Any Lesson from Citizens United?

This paper examines the concept of Corporate Political Speech in a Democracy. Corporation being a legal person is clothed with distinct attributes necessary for its existence as a person and for the realization of its goals and objectives. The paper reasons that Corporation must speak out in politics to influence ideas and enrich debates in the political marketplace. As a person, the Corporation is entitled to rights to free speech. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the message is blatant and uncompromising a business corporation has no business in politics. It must follow political debates and policies sheepishly and slavishly without a voice. The paper finds that the blanket-ban on Corporate Political Donations in Nigeria has bred a black market for corporate speech. It juxtaposes the Nigerian position with the US jurisdiction with a view to finding a suitable model for Nigeria’s nascent democracy.

The Military and the Challenge of Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria: Positive Scepticism and Negative Optimism

Nigeria, like several other countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, depicts the picture of a ‘Praetorian state’ or what Leo Dare called the ‘Praetorian trap’. The reason for this nomenclature is not farfetched. The polity alternated between civilian and military administrations since its ‘flag independence’ in October 1960. The only respite so far is the uninterrupted civilian administration since 29 May1999, when a nascent democracy was inaugurated. Even at that, the risk of military intervention has not completely disappeared from the political firmament. The thrust of this article, however, is an in-depth analysis of the role(s) of the Military in democratic political transition in Nigeria. This study becomes imperative in the context of the Military superimposed democratic transitions in Nigeria. In a nutshell the article recognises the contributions of the Military vis-à-vis democratic transition and sustenance.

Youth and Ethnic Movements and Their Impacts on Party Politics in ECOWAS Member States

Although they historically played a pivotal role in the fight against colonial rule—as they have in recent attempts to entrench multiparty democratic processes—the role of youth in political parties in West Africa has received less than commensurate attention in studies on democratization. Unlike in advanced democracies where parties are key agents of political socialization and leadership, parties in West Africa are built on ethno-religious foundations. A peculiar character of highly marginalized youth thus becomes inevitable, both in politics and decision-making processes of the state. To assert themselves, the youth have also become agents of destabilization of the democracy they partook to build. Apart from their involvement in political violence, youths are now available as unconscientious “foot soldiers” of ethnic militias and terrorist groups that are constituting increased social problems in West Africa. In this article, we examine how parties and youth have interacted to define the emergence and character of threat to the nascent democracies in contemporary West Africa. The article interrogates how the notions of “youth” and “political participation” have continued to play out in different West African countries within the context of the opportunities and challenges of Africa’s youth bulge on the democratization process. The article observes that the marginalization of West African youths has been part and parcel of history only that their situation has further raised the stake as agent of social disorder in the absence of positive engagement in the recent times.

Local Governmnt Administration and Opposition Parties in Nigeria: 1999-2011

Local government administration shapes the fate of modern democracy; because it is a medium where interest groups in the state stake and resolve their claims to political power through peaceful means. The grass root election in Nigeria since 1999 till date has been complex especially with opposition party since 1999 till date; and this violence cut across Nigeria. The democratic experiment in the administration of local government is marred with chaos, fraud, rigging, and all imaginable form of malpractices. This makes electoral process uninteresting in the grass root. The question remains is there active competition among competing aspirants of various political parties at the grass root level. The process of democratization will thrive when rural dwellers that form the bedrock of political process are allowed to make inputs in policies at the local level. Local government administration in Nigeria has been consistent with the exclusion of opposition parties. The theoretical nature of the paper examines concept, evolution and factors that hang ruling party in power against opposition party on the process of grass root election in Nigeria fourth republic, and suggest ways to resolve some attitudes meted by ruling party during electioneering to sustain our nascent democracy. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n16p17

Myanmar's Electoral System: Reviewing the 2010 and 2012 Elections and Looking Ahead to the 2015 General Elections

Myanmar's 2010 multi-party election was the nation's first in two decades, signaling a manufactured transition from nearly half a century of military dictatorship toward parliamentary democracy. The current single-member district, plurality voting electoral system limits the parliamentary representation of smaller, ethnic political parties, and inflates the influence of larger, enfranchised parties, jeopardizing peaceful national reconciliation between various factions and the country's inchoate democratic institutions. Myanmar's Union Electoral Commission should consider electoral reforms that: (a) maximize proportional representation; (b) guarantee peace and political stability; and (c) guarantee a sufficient parliamentary majority that can govern the nascent democracy. The ideal system for the upcoming 2015 general elections is a Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) one, with one parliamentary house electing ministers by plurality in regional districts and the other with proportional representation by party list. This paper considers alternative electoral systems in light of the status quo and argues that MMP would produce the most stable and representative results for all parties concerned.

Negotiating Indonesia: Political Genealogies of Timorese Democracy

This article provides an examination of ambivalent negotiations of Indonesia in independent Timor-Leste. Post-independence engagements with and longings for Indonesia have rarely been treated in analyses of Timor-Leste. The article takes as its starting point the inscription of difference between Indonesia and what was then known as East Timor during the resistance years, before moving on to analyse how Indonesian discourses and imaginaries of politics and democracy came to acquire new meaning in the context of Timorese democratic politics and political crisis. It is suggested that Indonesia remains an influential but ambivalent reference point in the independent nation. It is the shadow from which Timor-Leste's nascent democracy is constantly required to distance itself and, simultaneously, an object of longing. Hence, Indonesia figures as an ambivalent model of modernity and of potent state power that inspires political visions of improved futures.

‘Fit audience, though few’: Romanticism and Physical Education in the 1820s

Early nineteenth-century England saw the emergence of any number of social, cultural and political practices – everything from a vogue for French cuisine to a nascent representative democracy – that have in subsequent decades and centuries become so fully woven into the fabric of everyday life as to seem routine. Such practices have now become veiled behind that ‘film of familiarity’ that, as Coleridge noted famously in the Biographia Literaria, makes them effectively invisible. One such innovation from the period is, surprisingly enough, a concern for purposive exercise, physical education, and physical fitness. Sparked in London by the ideas and practices of several refugees from the Continent, interest in ‘German gymnastics’ blossomed in the 1820s into an early but rather short-lived fitness boom: several private practitioners established themselves as what we would call ‘personal trainers’ or ‘physical therapists’, new gymnasiums opened offering fitness classes on a subscription basis to the general public, and at a meeting at the Mechanics’ Institute in 1826, the London Gymnastic Society was formed. This was a novel development for the British. While there had been occasional individual bouts of exercise devoted to improving a single person’s fitness or demonstrating some athletic feat to the astonished spectators, and while there had been organised physical training directed toward some broader purpose such as military service, ‘country sports’, or even pedestrian tourism, collective classes undertaken for the sole purpose of improving the participants’ level of physical fitness constituted an innovation of the era. In effect, the classes in step aerobics, cross-training, and pilates that keep people streaming in to the local gymnasium or fitness centre today are an unlikely product of the Romantic period. The present essay outlines the general history of this emergent concern with physical fitness and then suggests that a key reason for its flourishing in England in the 1820s and early 1830s was an implicit connection with, on the one hand, the discourses of literary

Resolute Leaders and ‘Cardboard Deputies’: Parliamentary Party Unity in the New Spanish Democracy

This study puts forward a leadership-centred explanation of parliamentary party unity in new democracies, which departs from more common approaches that emphasise the effects of exogenous variables on rank-and-file legislator behaviour. By analysing party unity in the first two legislative sessions (1977–79, 1979–82) of Spain's nascent democracy, the study demonstrates that the Spanish parties manifested very high levels of voting unity. It argues that in order to understand party unity it is critical to examine party leadership goals and incentives; and it places leadership choices at the centre of the analysis.

A Cacophony of Dissonance

A Cacophony of Dissonance

A Taste for Justice: Unpacking Identity Politics in a Nascent Democracy

This article examines attention to justice cues in the novel context of the nascent democracy of Tanzania. Using secondary national survey data, we illustrate Tanzanian citizens' attention to justice cues. We then test two competing hypotheses about the impact of religious identity on attention to justice cues. The first hypothesized model, based on System Justification Theory, predicts that subordinate group members (Muslims) will stay more loyal than dominant group members (Christians) to their government due to a decreased attention to justice cues. The second hypothesized model, based on the relational model of procedural justice, predicts that subordinate group members (Muslims) will dissent more than dominant group members (Christians) from their government due to an increased attention to justice cues. Multiple regression and mediational analyses indicate support for the procedural justice framework, with trust in the dominant political party mediating the relationship between process satisfaction and party identification. Implications for political and psychological theorizing about democratic processes will be discussed.

Cohabitation in New Post-Conflict Democracies: The Case of Timor-Leste

One of the most well-known and longstanding arguments against semi-presidential systems is the problem of cohabitation, or the situation where the president and the prime minister are from opposing political groups and where the president's party is not represented in the cabinet. People believe that cohabitation exaggerates tension between the president and the prime minister, leading to conflict and democratic instability. However, recent work questions the relation between cohabitation and democratic instability. These contradictory findings call for a more nuanced approach to the analysis of cohabitation on the consolidation of young democracies. This article tests the effect of cohabitation on the performance of Timor-Leste's nascent democracy. It finds institutional conflict during cohabitation. It also finds that while most institutional conflicts were regulated disagreement between the president and the prime minister over defence policy escalated into serious political instability. The Timor-Leste case suggests that not all conflicts will cause political instability but rather a certain type of institutional conflict. In this new post-conflict state, institutional conflict over defence policy during cohabitation seriously destabilised Timor-Leste's fledging democracy.