Following a surge in oil revenues in the 1970s, Nigeria became one of Africa’s most rapidly developing nations. In Nigerian Capitalism, Sayre P. Schatz analyzes the country’s political economy, assessing its position and proposing a development plan for the final quarter of the twentieth century. Referring to Nigeria’s economic development strategy as "nurture-capitalism," Sayre contrasts the role of private enterprise, which is expected to foster growth of the productive sector of the economy, with the government’s role, which is to nurture the capitalist sector generally and to favor indigenous enterprise in particular. The author examines the development of Nigerian nurture-capitalism from 1949 to the launching of and early experience with the Third Plan (1975–80), with emphasis on the post-civil war 1970s. He then turns to an intensive study of indigenous business and possible impediments to the development of Nigerian private enterprise, analyzing the role of capital availability, entrepreneurship, and the economic environment. Sayre demonstrates that there are substantial divergences between private profitability and social utility and that there is an abundance of socially useful investment possibilities for indigenous businessmen. The author next turns to a study of the government business-assistance programs, and their economic, administrative, and political characteristics. Finally, he assesses the sources of successful investment and makes a case for enhanced socially useful investments. Comparing “pragmatic developmentalism,” “pragmatic socialism,” and “thoroughgoing socialism,” he proposes a pragmatic orientation that postpones ideological decisions as long as practicable. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.

This book evaluates the global status and prospects of democracy, with an emphasis on the quality of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of governance as key conditions for stable democracy. Bringing together a wide range of the author’s work over the past three decades, it advances a framework for assessing the quality of democracy and it analyzes alternative measures of democracy. Drawing on the most recent data from Freedom House, it assesses the global state of democracy and freedom, as of the beginning of 2015, and it explains why the world has been experiencing a mild but now deepening recession of democracy and freedom since 2005. A major theme of the book across the three decades of the author’s work is the relationship between democratic quality and stability. Democracies break down, Diamond argues, not so much because of economic factors but because of corrupt, inept governance that violates individual rights and the rule of law. The best way to secure democracy is to ensure that democracy is accountable, transparent, genuinely competitive, respectful of individual rights, inclusive of diverse forms and sources of participation, and responsive to the needs and aspirations of ordinary citizens. Viable democracy requires not only a state that can mobilize power to achieve collective goals, but also one that can restrain and punish the abuse of power—a particularly steep challenge for poor countries and those with natural resource wealth. The book examines these themes both in broad comparative perspective and with a deeper analysis of historical trends and future prospects in Africa and Asia,. Concluding with lessons for sustaining and reforming policies to promote democracy internationally, this book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in democracy, as well as politics and international relations more generally.

This book focuses on the historical construction of African states, the modes of political control in the region, and the character of political elites. It examines the nature of political legitimacy and the avenues of participation or withdrawal pursued by various popular sectors.

The Anglia Book Series (ANGB) offers a selection of high quality work on all areas and aspects of English philology. It publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on the new English literatures, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory.

The inadequacies of many past studies that have tried to highlight the causes of the persistent underdevelopment in developing countries—such as Nigeria—have been noted to derive mainly from the focus and, in some cases, the methodologies adopted by the researchers. It has been suggested that, although many researchers recognize the inability to reproduce sufficient profit as undermining the capitalist accumulation process (and as a result the development of an economy), they have nevertheless often tended to ignore the importance of the political-economic arrangement and historical factors in the formation of expectations about the rate of profit. Indeed, in some cases, they have failed to provide a substantive account of these critical variables. This book highlights how the inherent contradictions of the contemporary political-economic arrangement and some historical factors undermined the peculiar capital accumulation processes in Nigeria, which, in turn, has slowed economic development in the country. This book contributes to the field of Nigeria studies by filling gaps that exist in both theoretical and empirical literature on growth and development in the country, deviating from the orthodox approach of analysing the nation’s problems purely based on the factors internal to the country and by imposing ready-made theoretical logics on history. Rather, it studies Nigeria’s problems in juxtaposition with the world system and imposes historical evidence on theoretical logics. This book represents a good resource for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses on area studies. Researchers and policy-makers will also find it useful as a reference.

Research report tracing the trade unionization and trade unionism of transport workers and dockers in the port of Lagos, Nigeria, from 1940s to the 1960s - studies the unionization of two major sections of the Nigerian working class: unionized workers (skilled workers, clerical workers and railway workers) and largely nonunionized workers (unskilled workers, casual workers); discusses the influence of subcontracting, interunion rivalry trade union federations, strikes and the role of UK. Bibliography, maps, photographs, tables.

African popular theater includes conventional drama plus such nonliterary performance as dance, mime, storytelling, masquerades, vaudeville, improvization, & the theater of social action & resistance. Media such as radio, film, & television are included.