The Dynamics of Civil Society in Democratisation: the Nigerian Case, 1983-2007

Abstract

This study examines the activities of civil society from 1983 to 2007 in the Nigerian democratisation whose effective transition took off in 1999, by highlighting how military authoritarian regimes faced their undaunted challenges in the hands of civil society organisations. In order to do this, this work makes exposition of three military regimes starting from 1983 to 1998. The outcome of this exercise shows how military regimes played a role in their own demise by triggering the violent reaction of civil society organisations through various factors that rooted during the regimes. These factors combined with their influence on civil society organisations are referred to as dynamics of civil society. This paper, in highlighting the dynamics of civil society, adopts process tracing method which enables us to answer the main research question. The study, without undermining other actors in democratisation, argues that changes in the dynamics of civil society influenced revolutions and subsequent democratisation in Nigeria. In the course of this argument, the paper pinpoints on how civil society rescues Nigeria when the political class and all the democratic structures have been virtually rendered redundant.