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Democracy and Prebendalism in Nigeria: Critical Interpretations. Edited by Wale Adebanwi and Ebenezer Obadare. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Pp. 320; tables, index. $90.00.
Few books on African politics written in the past thirty years can claim the enduring influence of Richard Joseph's 1987 classic, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria. Although the text itself is a case study of Nigeria's Second Republic and its descent into corruption and misgovemance, Joseph's analysis offered a new, empirically situated lens for viewing "neopartimonialism," the distinctive strategy of statecraft adopted by most African regimes in the 1970s and 1980s in which formal bureaucratic and political institutions are "captured" by vertical networks of patron-client relations. Joseph's discussion of "prebendalism" provided a detailed, easily comparable lesson in how such a system could sustain itself through democratic institutions, emphasizing the role of intraelite bargaining and exchange in perpetuating a cycle of the private appropriation of state resources.
Given the challenges of governance in Nigeria's Fourth Republic, now is an excellent time to revisit Joseph's theoretical contributions. The book under review is the product of a 2011 conference held in Lagos in Joseph's honor, hosted by one of Nigeria's most reformminded governors, Dr. Kay ode Fayemi (a trained political scientist and former director of the Center for Democracy...