Abstract
The discourse on Nigeria’s development trajectory has largely focused on the role of the state in the development process. The developmentalists of the 1960s and 1970s emphasized the critical role of state-directed development. On the other hand, with the neoliberal ascendancy from the 1980s, neoliberals criticized state-directed development while emphasizing market-led development. The respective viewpoints coincide with the ascendant theoretical and ideological perspectives on development among the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), Western donor and development agencies, and Western social scientists (in this case, Africanist social scientists), who exercise dominant influence over the development discourse on Africa. In spite of the different and seemingly contradictory perspectives on the part of developmentalists and neoliberals over the role the state should play in the economic development process in developing countries, the state nevertheless occupied an important position in their respective analyses.
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Notes
J. Toye, “Changing Perspectives in Development Economics,” in H. Chang ed., Rethinking Development Economics, London: Anthem Press, 2003, 29;
H. Chang, “Rethinking Development Economics: An Introduction,” in ibid., 15. Indeed, Joseph Stiglitz who served as the World Bank’s Chief Economist from 1997 to 1999 and became an ardent critic of the Bank’s neoliberal policies, criticized the tendency of blaming internal factors, such as poor implementation, corruption, and incompetent governments rather than the inadequacy of development policies, with regard to the development malaise of non-Western countries. See J. Stiglitz, “Whither Reform?—Ten Years of the Transition,” in H. Chang ed., Joseph Stiglitz and the World Bank: the Rebel Within, London: Anthem Press, 2001, 127–171.
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See W. F. Stolper, Planning Without Facts: Lessons in Resource Allocation for Nigeria’s Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1966.
See C. Ake, Social Science as Imperialism: The Theory of Political Development, Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1982.
C. Ake, Democracy and Development in Africa, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1996, 15.
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Dibua, J.I. (2013). Introduction: Neopatrimonialism, Eurocentric Diffusionism, and Development Planning. In: Development and Diffusionism. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286659_1
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