Research

Works in progress: Normative Politics in Africa

Politics in African countries is normally studied as if it is entirely practical: politicians and voters engage in transactional exchanges of material goods for political support, with votes going to the highest bidder. By contrast, my work shows how normative elements - such as political ideas, ideologies or values - shape both the ends and means of contestation in political contexts widely described, by actors both within and without, as bereft of principle. In my research I address questions like: How are material practices embedded in normative frameworks? If, as many African politicians argue, the primary aim of politics in African countries is development, then how is development understood?

The Normative Politics in Africa workshop held in LSE in May 2018 presented the results of a series of collaborative workshops, involving scholars from the Global North and South. The call for papers sets out the core themes of this series of workshops. Details of participants and papers can be found on the programme and list of abstracts.

My PhD thesis looked at how politicians and voters engage with one particular normative concept that has been heavily promoted by international development organisations and donors: good governance. Values like accountability and transparency help explain political contestation around the Oyo State gubernatorial elections in 2011 and 2015. However, these core values are conceived of in ways that challenge widespread assumptions both about the nature of 'good governance' and corruption. The following works in progress extend this research agenda by exploring in more depth how political competition in Nigeria offers new ways of conceptualising values like enlightenment, accountability and transparency.

Please email me if you would like a copy of any of the draft papers below.

How African governments use the idea of the “new non-poor”: the middle class as an enlightened public

The Middle Class emerged as a buzz-word in development in 2010 and has since elicited extensive celebration, cynicism and debate. The debate has evolved from asking what the middle classes themselves can do – are they are social force for development, democratisation or economic growth? – to asking what the ‘hype’ around the idea of the middle class is doing. What does the popularity of the idea represent, and how are different actors able to use the idea of the middle class?
For some, the middle class hype is simply an “ideological smokescreen”. By contrast this article argues that ideas are always doing some sort of ideological work. In the case of African governments at least, it argues that the idea of the middle classes is valuable not to cloak the real machinations of the elite, as some have suggested (Melber 2017), but to redefine the task of African governments away from poverty and towards something more aspirational. Drawing on the politics of urban renewal in Ibadan, Nigeria, it argues that African governments adopt the idea of a ‘non-poor’ public to legitimate a form of politics that relies constructing public consent for aspirational, future-oriented – that is, peculiarly middle class - development.
[Under review]

The politics of principle and patronage: transformation, distribution and empowerment schemes in Oyo state, Nigeria

The binary of patronage and principled politics has long shaped the study of politics in Africa. Despite powerful critiques of neopatrimonialism many still claims that the real politics of Africa is purely material. Cases of apparent political transformation from patronage politics to more principled, developmental states are especially revealing of how these apparently conflicting logics are navigated by politicians in the context of popular expectations. Lagos state has attracted attention as a high profile cases of political transformation from patronage- to principle-based politics. Yet, attempts to replicate the ‘Lagos Model’ in nearby, cash-strapped Oyo state reveal the tensions inherent in this transformation. Amidst programmatic appeals, distributive programmes were variously framed as ‘empowerment’, financial inclusion and charity. For patronage to be perceived as legitimate and thus serve as an effective electoral strategy it must be framed within popular norms and values. Patronage and principle are thus in practice intertwined.
[Under review]

Accountability as Accessibility: Technocratic, popular and populist conceptions of governance in Nigeria and beyond

Elected representatives should be accountable, but what does accountability mean? Over almost three decades of governance reforms lead by international donor institutions accountability has become a buzzword in the good governance agenda. The underlying assumption of accountability as essentially a principal-agent interaction has been surprisingly resilient, withstanding waves of critique and reform to donor programming. Insights from in-depth qualitative fieldwork in southwest Nigeria suggest that actually existing conceptions of accountability – that is, the things that politicians do that render them accountable in the eyes of their constituents – differ radically from dominant donor ideas. Accountability as accessibility expresses the importance of a relationship between rulers and the ruled as one requiring visibility and direct communication, even in the absence of those in power delivering any tangible benefits. This article elucidates a new conceptual framework to make sense of accountability as accessibility. Combining African scholarship on the post-colonial state with work on ‘conversational democracy’ in the UK, accessibility emerges as a key means by which power is made accountable, not just in Nigeria but in a variety of non-African political contexts.

Earlier versions of this paper was presented at the African Studies Association UK Conference in Cambridge in September 2016; the Oxford African Studies Seminar in February 2018; and the Normative Politics in Africa workshop, LSE 9th May 2018.

Transparency and mistrust: who or what should be made transparent?

The relationship between trust and transparency of government is not straightforward. Troubling developments around the world, namely the rise of right-wing populism and President Trump, have raised the possibility that the technocratic forms of transparency governments currently champion are insufficient. Politicians like Trump perform a salient alternative conception of populist transparency based less on documents and data and more on honesty and authenticity to cultivate trust. Putting the U.S. into comparative perspective with political contestation in Nigeria, transparency proves to be similarly ambivalent: highly technocratic conceptions of transparency have at times faced popular mistrust. A series of qualitative case studies show that in Nigerian politics calls for transparency apply not just to data, but also to the social networks in which politicians are embedded. At times this demand for ‘transparency in people’ may clash with traditional transparency practices, thus helping provide fresh conceptual insights on transparency and trust.

Earlier draft presented at panel "Conspiracies and conspiracy theory: The politics of the unknown" at European Conference on African Studies July 2017 University of Basel. Under review.

Moral Politics, Reputable Inequality: reading John Lonsdale’s work on Kikuyu moral thought as normative politics par excellence

How do those values forged in the crucible of small-scale moral economies relate to broader political values? In his influential 1994 paper ‘Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism’ John Lonsdale argues that values of the homestead or the village – usually framed in terms of ethnicity – provide a normative underpinning for political contestation within the state arena: the tragedy is that this act of translation so often fails, whether in Africa or elsewhere. This article highlights the enduring value of Lonsdale’s theorisation of moral ethnicity whilst drawing attention to the weaknesses of his larger theory of how morality relates to politics. Lonsdale’s exposition of Kikuyu political thought, as evidenced in debates within Mau Mau leadership in the 1950s, should be understood as an example of ‘moral politics’ which shares much with conservative political thought elsewhere. Whilst rejecting Lonsdale’s implicit claim that moral politics is the only form of normative politics, we can take his account of accumulation within the village as a powerful creation myth that allows us to rethink the starting point of political thought. The task of making inequality ‘reputable’ is one that liberal accounts of democracy struggles to engage with, but nonetheless is central to addressing the material inequality and lack of responsibility that characterises 21st century politics. Thus this article connects the emerging research agenda of normative politics in Africa with ongoing debates about hierarchy, material inequality and the role of morality in politics.

Paper presented at 'Patronage, Politics and the Moral Economy of Electoral Politics' panel at the African Studies Association UK, University of Birmingham, 11th September 2018.

“Gender, ruling party support and authoritarianism in Sub-Saharan Africa”

With Dan Paget. Much work has looked at the ‘gender gap’ in voting, in terms of how gender affects hypothetical voter preferences on a left-right spectrum, but less is known about how gender shapes how voters choose between actually existing political options. This paper combines regression analysis of Afrobarometre survey data, with a theoretical engagement with the literature on gender and political subjectivities in Africa to develop a new theory of how the public-private divide patterns political attitudes in democratising countries.

Northeast Nigeria

I also have a sustained research interest in the politics of Northeast Nigeria. I have published on the dynamics of the Boko Haram insurgency and the state's response (see Framing and blaming: Discourse analysis of the Boko Haram uprising, July 2009).

In November 2017 I authored a report "Civil Society, Religion and the State: Mapping of Borno and Adamawa". The report was conducted for the GIZ programme ‘Support to strengthening resilience in North-East Nigeria’ which focuses on governance, livelihoods and infrastructure in areas affected by the Boko Haram insurgency. It is based on fieldwork conducted in July-August 2017 in Maiduguri, Yola and Mubi.

I will be presenting a paper drawn from this research at the African Studies Association UK in September 2018 as part of the 'Honouring Raufu Mustapha' stream's panel on Nigerian Politics.

Can there be too much inter-faith social contact? Religious leaders and peace-building between the local and international in northeast Nigeria

Abstract:
Interfaith peace-building programmes rely on the idea that social contact between disparate groups will breed tolerance and trust. This article is about how interfaith social-contact came to be a site of intervention by the United States in northern Nigeria, and how the pursuit of inter-faith social contact created opportunities for various actors to create opportunities on the basis of being either ‘international’, ‘local’ or both. Firstly it focuses on a specific inter-faith peace-building programme implemented by one of USAID’s local partners, highlighting the way that contradictory claims of local knowledge and international expertise play out. Secondly the article draws on fieldwork in Borno and Adamawa to compare the implicit model of social-contact – where more and deeper contact is always better – with attitudes towards interfaith local contact among local religious leaders. Practitioners should be aware of the potential for disconnect between expansive aspirations for social contact as a route to peace and the more minimal ‘local’ visions of appropriate social contact.

Click on the image to download the report