Civil Society Organizations and the Promotion of Liberal Democracy Exploring the Elements of Continuities in Nigerian Politics

Abstract

Democracy promotion has been a reoccurring feature of the neoliberal international order that emerged after the ideological triumph of liberalism in the cold war. Neoliberal scholars have vigorously projected the quest for democracy as a universal yearning while western governments have continued to provide support for countries of the Third World where the democratic tenet is low in order to ensure its consolidation. Such support has mainly been in the form of providing funding for sundry civil society groups with a focus on democracy promotion programming. In Nigeria, a cottage industry of democracy-promoting civil society groups has since emerged. Scholars have interrogated the role of these foreign-funded civil society organizations in the actual consolidation of democracy in the country. Extant explanations are however inadequate for explicating the intractable nature of Nigerian politics viz-a-viz the activities of these groups. The present study therefore deploys the Gramscian hegemonic theory to the explanation of the activities these groups in the country.