Our country is so richly blessed that it has no reasons to be at or near the bottom of the world development table. It should not be a struggling developing nation but a developed one. It has an estimated population of over million and a highly articulate and educated work force. State governments budget their annual capital and recurrent expenditures in billions of Naira. Given our resource endowments, this sorry state is a serious indictment" Adamu, Agriculture was the mainstay of the national economy before the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the mid-fifties.
There could be no greater pity for the national economy than that these programs failed to achieve their set objectives. Nigeria is still a net importer of food, poultry, beef and diary, spending as much as two million dollars annually on these and other food items.
Its arable lands are still not lush green with cash and food crops Adamu, The fault was not in the programs, but in policy instability that appears to have been accepted as a normal way of doing government business in the country. Perhaps, if these policies had been sustained and occasionally retuned and retooled by successive administrations, the national economy would have been healthier today. The economy was also largely public sector-driven. Federal and state governments invested directly in virtually all areas of economic activities.
State governments even owned breweries, transport services and retail companies. The state was thus in the commanding height of the national economy. The rationale was that the country did not have enough indigenous entrepreneurs to invest in these and other areas of the economy.
It did not help matters that the government-owned companies, be they federal or state, were inefficient and wasteful. They became bottomless pits and a drain on the public purse. The mixed economy model of development fell out of favor with economists and economic planners elsewhere in the world in the early seventies. Public sector-driven economies began to give way to private sector-driven economies.
This was a major, global paradigm shift. The economy was ailing. The Bretton Woods Institutions designed the structural adjustment program for ailing third world economies.
The policy aimed at: restructuring and diversifying the productive base of the economy in order to reduce dependence on the oil sector and imports; achieving a fiscal and balance of payment viability over the medium term, and laying the basis for a sustainable non-inflationary growth over the medium and the long-terms. Under the program, government embarked on partial or full privatization of its companies and parastatals. Many of government enterprises put on the block were privatized.
SAP left a bitter feeling in the national psyche and became a metaphor for a wrong path to our national development. Policy instability had claimed one more victim. A unique feature of NEEDS was that the federal government supported it with comprehensive reforms in the public sector.
The reform in the banking sector consolidated Nigerian banks into twenty-five mega banks, each with a minimum capital base of 25 billion naira. For a private sector-driven economy, it meant that the banks were strong enough to support private initiatives and entrepreneurship. Secondly, government showed sufficient political will by its full and unequivocal commitment to the success of this and its other developmental programs.
Again, the Obasanjo administration also set Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by the year NEEDS represented a new beginning for the country. Nigeria thus entered into another endless and vicious spiral of policy shift, somersault and back-flips.
By sticking to political expediency, playing politics with the lives of Nigerians and a gross lack of commitment to the implementation of existing policies in place, the government has continued to engage in a wild goose chase and pay lip service to the all-important question of national development. In fact the present administration GoodLock Ebele Jonathan is set majorly for food security Agriculture, sustainable electricity, Peace security and Employment.
Though one cannot just say that the present administration is a failed government but the strategies use in achieving these developments especially vision is not viable yet. Frequent policy shift and policy formulation ad infinitum. Every government that comes to power always seems to be in a hurry to find fault with the policies in place and cancels such a policy in order to pave way for its own. This leads to a bottomless pit of waste of national resources and always takes the nation back to the starting line again.
The politicking process in policy formulation and implementation. Each party that comes into power seems to satisfy the mandate of the party and its sponsors and does not care about the lives and wellbeing of the people. This further impoverishes the citizens and depreciates the human development indices of Nigerians. The hydra-headed monster called corruption. Elaborate committees are constituted, funds are allocated and endless meetings, parleys and discussions are held to bring out a policy blueprint after which another set of funds is allocated for the policy implementation during the life of the government in power.
When a new government comes in, the whole vicious, painful and wasteful cycle commences again. Meanwhile, government officials and politicians continue to steal the country dry to pursue their personal, sectional and hegemonic politico-economic interests. The Nigerian factor that has manifested itself in ethnic considerations, favoritism, astrictive criteria and selective administration of scarce resources and rewards, bribery, nepotism, etc.
This situation limits the efforts of government to genuinely transit its policies to the level of praxis where such policies improve on the welfare and living standards of the people. Insecurity, the government lost its focus especially in the area of improving other aspect of developments and concentrate heavily on security of the nation.
In a developing nation which erupts with crises cannot develop. Both personal development and national development will be affected. There must be commitment for personal and national development to be realized. Without commitment, goals set will not be pursued and any form of resistance and challenges that rears its head would be seen as an impossibility leading to discouragement and quitting behaviors.
Individuals and nations must also take responsibility to ensure that they achieve goals set and the desired level of development in their respective spheres. Individuals and countries must also be willing to commit the needed resources of time, financial, human resources, etc. Also, Continuation of policy by succeeding administration needs to be guaranteed.
Without development, society stagnates, is backward, is traditional, is limited, will operate below its potentials, will lose its competitive edge and advantages, and consequently such a society will be reduced to a theater of crime and violence, where stakeholders would begin to compete for the limited opportunities and resources in place.
Personal and national development is a reality that can bring about economic prosperity for the Nigerian people, lead to greater support for the programs and policies of the government of the day and motivate workers and citizens to find self-satisfaction, while exploring their potentials and talents for their good and for the good of those around them. Adamu, A. The challenges of Nigeria's economic development in the 21st century: Baking the national cake. Text of a lecture delivered at a symposium conducted at the Nigeria Awareness Group, Zurich, Switzerland.
Adedipe, B. Adejumobi, S. With the end of the cold war it seemed that the bipolar world had become more unified, whether through cultural homogenisation or the spread of capitalism. People became more conscious of global problems, like climate change. Economic interdependency and instability were more visible. Money flowed more freely and national economies went into recession together in the s and again 30 years later. From the s onwards one of the building blocks of the national era, the nation- state, seemed to be under threat.
Welfare states became cumbersome and expensive and economic liberals like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher led the world in rolling them back. The first half of this introduction will look at the sociology of globalization and themes of the book. The second half will discuss the concept of globalization. The Sociology of Globalization Globalization may appear a macro phenomenon and distant, not the same as micro issues that have more of an impact on daily life. Yet large-scale global processes of economic restructuring and international political power have a big impact on our individual lives.
The global economy and distribution of wealth affect, for example, our chances of employment and material circumstances. Identity and cultural experience is forged out of global inputs, from media to music, migration and food. Which side you live on in the constellation of global political powers has significant consequences for your life chances.
For some, phenomena like culture and people movements are what sociologists should be concerned about. Culture is sociological and has social effects whereas economic and political issues are the preserve of other disciplines or maybe just less interesting. Culture is very important and interesting, as we shall see in this book. Culture is affected by economic and political factors. For instance, mergers and diversification in the media industry and government deregulation have a large impact on our cultural experiences as consumers.
Economic and political factors which seem distant from our lives have a large impact. The fact that I live in a rich, developed country, one of the core powers in the world, and relatively democratic, peaceful, and free, has a great effect on my life compared to what it would be like if I lived in a poor, developing country, or one with less democracy and freedom, or more conflict and violence.
That I can watch cable television and access the internet, what are cultural experiences, does not just have economic and political bases but also pales into insignificance next to economic and political factors which give me a privileged everyday experience.
Culture is important, it interests us and we are conscious of it on a daily basis. Some sociologists think that if you look at politics and economics this is not really sociology. It is the territory of political science and economics. But this lacks a sense of an interdisciplinary role for sociology.
Furthermore sociology is the study of social structures, relations and processes, of society. Society includes political and economic dimensions.
And parts of society and social relations not classified as political or economic, for instance culture and migration, are affected by politics and economics. This book takes politics and economics seriously and sees these as an important part of sociology. If culture is looked at separately from economic and political relations then the economic and political power, inequality and conflict that affects culture is overlooked. This makes cultural globalization seem more equal and benign than it really is.
Some sociologists separate their studies of cultural globalization from their studies of political-economic relations. Consequently their awareness of conflict, inequality and power in politics and economics becomes separated from the more benign, equal and cosmopolitan picture they have of culture for instance, see Beck , and Nederveen Pieterse a, b.
For a sociology of globalization that incorporates political economy and so power, inequality and conflict see Bourdieu , , To take an interdisciplinary perspective is distinctively sociological.
Sociology has, from its founding days, drawn on economic and political perspectives and dealt with issues such as capitalism, ownership, the division of labour, economic class, and the role of the nation-state. Consequently, sociology is well equipped to deal with modernity, capitalism and the state, some of the main institutions in globalization. Some of the core themes of sociology are at the heart of this book: such as power, inequality and social divisions and inequalities such as class and gender.
Sociology does not have a monopoly on understanding such themes and to make sense of them I will draw on economic and political perspectives. So this book looks at some important conventionally sociological topics, migration and the movement of people, the media, culture and social movements. But it also identifies inequality and power as distinctively sociological preoccupations to look out for in globalization. Furthermore it argues that the economy, politics and war, often left out of sociology, are sociological.
They are part of society and they affect society, social relations and social structures. If you want to narrow-mindedly rule such things out from being the proper concern of sociology then this leaves out some of the major factors affecting social life and especially behind power, inequality and conflict.
This makes sociology into a perspective which turns away from the realities of society, especially its harsher realities. There is a danger of fetishising the new in recent perspectives on globalization.
Cosmopolitanism is seen to be more appropriate to a new global era. It is argued that we need to break with old approaches and develop new perspectives which fit with a world in which cultures intermingle, where foci on the nation-state or capitalist economic power are too methodologically nationalist or economically determinist, where societies are no longer neatly bounded within national borders, and global identities such as human rights and hybridity are taking over for instance, see Beck , Urry There are problems with this advocacy of a cosmopolitan sociology.
A The old sociology was quite international in its outlook Turner Cosmopolitan sociologists overstate the novelty of contemporary cosmopolitan views. B Rejecting classical sociology as too economistic and statist undermines an understanding of the role of economic power and the state in globalization.
This leads to a picture of culture and social relations which does not show how they are unequal and power- laden because of economic and political structures. C Leaving out economic and political power is done in a way which is theoretically elegant and pleasing, but is not empirical enough.
The argument is made mainly theoretically in the face of empirical evidence which shows the role of capitalist and state power. D One empirical absence in cosmopolitanism is the focus of its advocates on their own parts of the world, especially old Europe and North America, and to a lesser extent other fast growing societies, with little attention paid to large parts of the world afflicted by poverty and war.
The former fit the cosmopolitan story better than the latter, although even the former are also distinctly uncosmopolitan when it comes to things like immigration and economic protectionism. E Cosmopolitanism is put forward as a new perspective in tune with the new global and intermixed world. There is a fetishisation of the new over the old such that anything that is old is labelled outmoded, unsophisticated or out of date even if empirical evidence shows it has a stronger hold on explaining things.
Or categorising something as old and outmoded is used as a way of dismissing it in place of dismissing it with a convincing critique of its theoretical cogency or, more importantly, empirical evidence. F As well as a lack of emphasis on empirical evidence there is contradiction. Some of those who reject the old approaches combine their new cosmopolitan arguments with other arguments which show the role of state and capitalist power.
Some of these points are developed more in Martell , and in this book. Themes of the book There are number of themes running through this book. Economic bases of globalization. As has been mentioned, many sociological studies of globalization have focused on culture and some have argued for a shift away from economic determinism. Culture has heavily shaped globalization and globalization has a lot to do with the transnationalisation and intermingling of cultures and local cultural responses to global cultures.
The interaction between globalization and culture and identities is exciting, important, full of possibilities and is discussed in this book. But it is difficult to see many areas of globalization where lying behind them are not also economic structures which affect the equality or power relations with which globalization is produced or received, or economic incentives to do with making money.
My argument is not just about the economics behind globalization, but capitalist economics, the pursuit of profit by private owners. Other factors tailor and shape globalization and the economics of profit is not the only causal factor or one that goes in a simple unlinear direction unaffected by other forces. But it is very often a significant driving force. Globalization is historical. It started long before the recent years of information technology, the end of the cold war or even the end of the second world war.
It has its bases earlier in the development of capitalism and industrialism and the institutions, technologies and incentives these systems brought along. These provided the biggest qualitative leap in globalization and are behind many forms of globalization today. They were not just the key starting point but also the basis for current forms. At the same time it is less plausible that globalization, or the bases for current globalization, started before this.
While Europe and the West were still relatively backward other more sophisticated parts of the world were practicing long-distance trade, religion and expansion but these were not truly globalization. Sceptical perspectives on globalization. Sociology is historically a critical discipline, and a critical but open-minded approach is healthy and in part what academic research should be about. Being critical about globalization leads to some sceptical conclusions, including doubts about whether what is called globalization really is, or whether international structures and processes in the world match up to the criteria for globalization.
What many people describe when they talk about globalization is happening. Describing it as globalization gives it a meaning which is misleading as to its true character. The sceptical view is linked to another theme of this book. Globalization is structured by power, inequality and conflict.
Some are agents in globalization more than others, and some are more integrated and others excluded. Structures and processes described as globalization are significant so studying these is important.
Power, inequality and conflict. Many analyses of globalization have been critical and see it as a problematic process: neoliberalism imposed on parts of the world by the West leading to negative consequences; or American imperialism played out through the media, exploitative multinational corporations or military power; to take a couple of examples.
Others in sociology, reacting against this view, see globalization as a more positive, equalising, democratic and benign process bringing an intermingling of cultures in a new cosmopolitanism, and the generalisation of positive values such as universal human rights. One of my aims is to investigate some of these latter perspectives and in doing so themes of power, inequality and conflict come to the fore. This books adds to the literature on globalization by taking distinctive concerns from sociology.
It has an emphasis on critical analysis, that examines power, inequality and conflict in global relations. It puts arguments about globalization to the test of theoretical coherence and empirical evidence. It looks for interdisciplinary links and a holistic view, outlining important social relations of culture and migration but seeing these as not separable from political and economic structures. As well as breadth in perspective the book is broad in the range of areas of globalization discussed, from hybrid cultures to worldwide wars.
The book aims to be accessible to an audience that is relatively new to this area, but without sacrificing its own arguments. Being critical can lead in different directions. In this book it leads to some partly pessimistic conclusions. Globalization may not be as developed as it seems. Insofar as it is, the picture is not as rosy as it might appear. The aim to solve world problems through global politics is well-meant but optimistic and hopeful. It is important to be negative if this is the most accurate conclusion to come to.
But alongside doubts about globalization and global politics this book has positive political arguments, for instance about how things could be made better in relation to migration, global poverty and international politics. Studying sociology can be a liberating experience: It expands our sympathies and imagination, opens up new perspectives on the sources of our own behavior, and creates an awareness of cultural settings different from our own.
Sociological ideas challenge dogma, teach appreciation of cultural variety, and allow us insight into the working of social institutions. Our second theme is inequalities. Throughout the text, we highlight that important resources—whether education, health, income, or social support—are not fairly or evenly distributed to all individuals. We highlight the ways that gender, race, social class, and age shape our daily lives in the United States.
We also pay keen attention to global inequalities, and reveal how differences in economic and natural resources throughout the world powerfully influence even very personal experiences—including health, religion, and relationships.
A third theme of the book is that of social and historical context. Sociology was born of the transformations that wrenched the industrializing social order of the. West away from the lifestyles characteristic of earlier societies. The pace of social change has continued to accelerate, and it is possible that we now stand on the threshold of transitions as significant as those that occurred in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Sociology has the prime responsibility for charting the transformations of our past and for grasping the major lines of development taking place today. Our understanding of the past also contributes to our understanding of institutions in the present and future. The fourth fundamental theme of the book is globalization. For far too long, sociology has been dominated by the view that societies can be studied as independent entities.
But even in the past, societies never really existed in isolation. Today we can see a clear acceleration in processes of global integration.
0コメント