Breakdown and Reconstitution: Democracy, The Nation-State, and Ethnicity in Nigeria

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Breakdown and Reconstitution analyzes the interplay between democratization, nation-state building, and ethnicity in Nigeria as well as the challenges of transforming a post-colonial multiethnic state into a stable democracy. This work draws attention to the intrinsic relation between the breakdown of quasi-democracy and the reconstitution of a more inclusive democracy and nation-state. Breakdown and Reconstitution is an essential source for scholars of politics in Africa.

Reviews

An admirably informed and insightful analysis of the challenge posed to consolidation of a stable democratic order in Nigeria by its ethnic diversity. Abu Bakarr Bah, drawing largely on Nigerian sources, explores the paradox of the counter-productive shift to centralization in spite of the repeated constitutional affirmation of the federal character of this multi-ethnic state. The clear failure of authoritarian military rule richly documented by the author demonstrates the necessity of democratic rule, but Bah also shows the limits of democratic formulas thus far devised in containing explosive ethnic tensions. -- M. Crawford Young, University of Wisconsin, Madison (emeritus)
The author's focus is clearly stated: 'In Nigeria, ethnicity has been a prime cause of political instability and the breakdown of law and order.' Readers in search of a carefully crafted analytical account of Nigeria's political development will find this relatively brief study rewarding and refreshing. . . .The bibliography includes an extensive collection of Nigerian government documents as well as the substantial literature on African political development. . . . Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate and graduate collections. -- M.E. Doro, emerita * Choice Reviews *
This book goes a long way towards redirecting the often unhelpful literature on ethnicity in Nigeria. * African Affairs *
[Bah] strives to understand the place of ethnicity in the breakdown and reconstitution of democracy and the nation-state, which he largely accomplishes through an historically grounded approach tracing Nigeria's conundrums to their colonial antecedents. Bah kills two birds with the same stone: providing a panoramic overview of the Nigerian state and the travails of democracy and nation-building. -- Ebenezer Obadare, London School of Economics * Journal of Political and Military Sociology *

Author Bio

Abu Bakarr Bah is assistant professor of sociology at Northern Illinois University.