Civil Society and Democracy in Nigeria: A Theoretical Approach by Bernard Nwosu

Author:Bernard Nwosu [Nwosu, Bernard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: African, Democracy, Political Ideologies, Political Science, World
ISBN: 9781000401998
Google: 68AyEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 56460132
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-07-27T07:22:11+00:00

In dialectical terms, none of these typologies of warfare in relations of forces excludes others. At the highest level of which is “war of position” the lower levels are subsumed within it. Gramsci’s idea could be deployed in different formations with a clear interpretation of each concrete situation. For instance, war of position could be seen in more democratised states as competing projects between different modes of regulation of the capitalist state. However, historical evidence of democratic reverses such as the rise of extremist organisations in Nazi Germany suggests that there is never a total overcoming of conditions of war of movement or frontal engagement between democratic and anti-democratic forces. In transitional states, relations of forces could be seen in terms of competing projects of democratic and undemocratic forces in the bid to establish institutions of democratic governance and extend the rights of citizenship. In the process, debates (war of position) and other forms of struggle that may include war of movement and underground warfare feature in a dialectical mix with one another.

Building on an intellectual heritage that passed from Marx, Gramsci and Althusser, Poulantzas (1980) conceived the state as a relationship of force, especially the material condensation of such relationship among classes and class fractions, expressed within the state in a necessarily specific form. Poulantzas added that it is by understanding the condensation of relationship that we avoid the impasse of that eternal counter-position of the state as a thing or instrument and the state as subject. A similar notion of the state was expressed by Jessop who argues that “… state power is a complex social relation that reflects the changing balance of social forces in a determinate conjuncture …” (1982, p. 221). These arguments ground the idea of the state on relations of forces. Relations of forces have bearing on social classes. However, the point needs to be made that dominance can be achieved through the alliance of a fundamental social class and other classes. Dominant forces can be a blend of powerful interests arising from distinct classes. In Nigeria, for instance, it may be little gainful to speak about dominance of the bourgeois and fractions of petty bourgeois elements. This is because the ruling group comprises elements from feudal traditional aristocracies, bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, external forces represented by multi-national businesses especially in the petroleum sector. The list may not be exhaustive but the above-listed are the constant forces that constitute the ruling group in the country. The state form is determined by relations among the ruling group: relations between them and state institutions and relations between the ruling group and other social forces in Nigeria. The relations among and between groups shape the state and are in turn shaped by the state. This study locates these configurations of social forces and interactions in Nigeria within the scope of Gramsci’s relations of forces.

Kant, Habermas and Foucault did not specifically mention relations of forces. But Kant’s emphasis on norms of debate which leads to the emergence of the moral force of the superior argument is about social relations within a deliberative context.

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