Case Study 4: Nigeria State capacity refers to the degree to which a state is able to successfully and efficiently carry out its designated responsibilities and provide high quality goods and services. A characteristic of many less developed countries is that they are lacking in state capacity. This can occur for a number of reasons, though most often it transpires due to fragility in one or more of the state characteristics identified by political economist Max Weber. These characteristics, bureaucracy, legitimacy, territory, and sovereignty determine the level of corruption that impedes development, erodes governmental legitimacy and minimizes the ability of government to reduce poverty, provide essential social services and infrastructure
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It then places each state into one of 11 categories of fragility, ranging from “very sustainable” to “very high alert” (Fund for Peace, 2017). In 2017, Nigeria scored 101.6, and was ranked the thirteenth least stable country out of the 178 counted. Harsh criticism in the past has suggested that the Fragile States Index might be “fatally flawed” (Evers, 2014). This was mainly motivated by the idea that the answer to global challenges and insecurities would lie in more state building. And this underlies the misleading belief of policymakers that “external intervention can be a proper reaction to, rather than a cause of, state fragility” (Evers, 2014). Put differently, being classified as “fragile” might leave a state doomed because of externally motivated intervention that could lead to ultimate destruction. There is evidence of this in the current refugee crisis, in which Western-led interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria subsequently caused millions of desperate refugees to escape into Europe. Despite its potential flaws, the Fragile State Index combined with outside knowledge can effectively provide a preliminary understanding of a country’s state …show more content…
They call this fundamental governance issue the “national question”; lacking a clear answer, Nigeria has stumbled along since independence oscillating between democracy and constitutionalism and military domination (Kesselman, 215). Nigeria’s First Republic experimented with the British-style parliamentary model, in which the prime minister is chosen directly from the legislative ranks. The First Republic was relatively decentralized, with more political power vested in the three federal units: the Northern, Eastern, and Western Regions. Today, Nigeria’s government is officially considered to be a Federal Republic with a presidential system; this takes the form of a system with a strong executive who is constrained by a system of formal checks and balances on authority, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judicial branch charged with matters of law and constitutional interpretation. In practice, however, “military rule left an authoritarian political culture that remains despite the formal democratization of state structures” (Kesselman, 215). The control of wealth by a centralized command structure has further cemented economic and political control in the centre, resulting in “a skewed federalism in which states enjoy nominal powers, but in reality are
It then places each state into one of 11 categories of fragility, ranging from “very sustainable” to “very high alert” (Fund for Peace, 2017). In 2017, Nigeria scored 101.6, and was ranked the thirteenth least stable country out of the 178 counted. Harsh criticism in the past has suggested that the Fragile States Index might be “fatally flawed” (Evers, 2014). This was mainly motivated by the idea that the answer to global challenges and insecurities would lie in more state building. And this underlies the misleading belief of policymakers that “external intervention can be a proper reaction to, rather than a cause of, state fragility” (Evers, 2014). Put differently, being classified as “fragile” might leave a state doomed because of externally motivated intervention that could lead to ultimate destruction. There is evidence of this in the current refugee crisis, in which Western-led interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria subsequently caused millions of desperate refugees to escape into Europe. Despite its potential flaws, the Fragile State Index combined with outside knowledge can effectively provide a preliminary understanding of a country’s state …show more content…
They call this fundamental governance issue the “national question”; lacking a clear answer, Nigeria has stumbled along since independence oscillating between democracy and constitutionalism and military domination (Kesselman, 215). Nigeria’s First Republic experimented with the British-style parliamentary model, in which the prime minister is chosen directly from the legislative ranks. The First Republic was relatively decentralized, with more political power vested in the three federal units: the Northern, Eastern, and Western Regions. Today, Nigeria’s government is officially considered to be a Federal Republic with a presidential system; this takes the form of a system with a strong executive who is constrained by a system of formal checks and balances on authority, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judicial branch charged with matters of law and constitutional interpretation. In practice, however, “military rule left an authoritarian political culture that remains despite the formal democratization of state structures” (Kesselman, 215). The control of wealth by a centralized command structure has further cemented economic and political control in the centre, resulting in “a skewed federalism in which states enjoy nominal powers, but in reality are