IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/publus/v53y2023i4p593-617..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Managing Diversity in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic National Assembly: Integrated Parties versus Ethno-Regional Balancing

Author

Listed:
  • Leila Demarest
  • Arnim Langer

Abstract

Since independence, Nigeria has adopted federalism to manage the country’s deep ethno-regional divisions, but federalism has not averted instability and return to military rule in the past. This highlights the need for additional factors and mechanisms to secure and stabilize civilian rule in Nigeria. The country’s ethnic party ban ensures that parties in power have a broad basis across the territory. Theoretically, these “integrated” parties are often argued to foster intergroup compromise and political stability. Yet in our case study of intergroup relations in Nigeria’s National Assembly, we demonstrate that the country’s broad-based parties do not play a strong role in organizing intergroup cooperation. Despite this, the Assembly has not experienced substantial policy gridlock. We argue that instead of integrated parties, ethno-regional balancing (i.e., a practice whereby key positions in parliament are allocated to different groupings) is a much more important stabilizing factor in Nigeria’s federal parliament.

Suggested Citation

  • Leila Demarest & Arnim Langer, 2023. "Managing Diversity in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic National Assembly: Integrated Parties versus Ethno-Regional Balancing," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 53(4), pages 593-617.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:53:y:2023:i:4:p:593-617.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pjad010
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eyene Okpanachi, 2019. "The Limits of Federation-wide Political Parties in Ensuring Federal Stability: Nigeria under the Peoples Democratic Party," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 49(4), pages 617-641.
    2. Arnim Langer, 2005. "Horizontal Inequalities and Violent Group Mobilization in Cote d'Ivoire," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 25-45.
    3. Leila Demarest & Arnim Langer & Ukoha Ukiwo, 2020. "Nigeria’s Federal Character Commission (FCC): a critical appraisal," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(4), pages 315-328, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ostby, Gudrun, 2007. "Horizontal inequalities, political environment, and civil conflict : evidence from 55 developing countries, 1986-2003," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4193, The World Bank.
    2. Solveig Hillesund, 2022. "To fight or demonstrate? Micro foundations of inequality and conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(2), pages 166-190, March.
    3. Arnim Langer & Frances Stewart, 2015. "Regional Imbalances, Horizontal Inequalities, and Violent Conflicts," World Bank Publications - Reports 22514, The World Bank Group.
    4. Adama A. Gross & Uriah G. Bailey & Inioluwa Ogunseye, 2024. "Corruption, Prebendalism and the Fragile State: A Case Study on Liberia," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(2), pages 1445-1457, February.
    5. Hannah Smidt, 2020. "Mitigating election violence locally: UN peacekeepers’ election-education campaigns in Côte d’Ivoire," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 57(1), pages 199-216, January.
    6. Tugce Cuhadaroglu, 2023. "Evaluating ordinal inequalities between groups," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(1), pages 219-231, March.
    7. Arnim Langer & Abdul Raufu Mustapha & Frances Stewart, 2009. "Diversity and discord: Ethnicity, horizontal inequalities and conflict in Ghana and Nigeria," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(4), pages 477-482.
    8. Brown, Graham K. & Langer, Arnim, 2011. "Riding the Ever-Rolling Stream: Time and the Ontology of Violent Conflict," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 188-198, February.
    9. Solveig Hillesund, 2023. "Choosing tactics: Horizontal inequalities and the risk of violent and nonviolent conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 60(6), pages 906-920, November.
    10. Ragnhild Nordås, 2014. "Religious demography and conflict: Lessons from Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 146-166, June.
    11. Gudrun Østby, 2013. "Inequality and political violence: A review of the literature," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 16(2), pages 206-231, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:publus:v:53:y:2023:i:4:p:593-617.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/publius .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.