Stanley Ehiane

Globalisation and the State-civil Society Relations in Nigeria: Globalisation and Civil-society Relations Stanley Ehiane

With the increasing demands of market forces via globalization on governments, the parallel requests from citizens to fill the gap often left open by states have become just as prevalent in the modern era. Governments have become ill-equipped to handle such citizen demands or simply unwilling, thus civil society Organizations are attempting to fill those gaps. Ideally, civil society actors are collectively mobilizing and advocating for more political openness, in the form of civil liberties and civil rights. However, civil society groups can stymie democracy-building as well. Demands for more democratization are increasing precipitously, and seem to be coinciding with the rising tide of globalization, even in fledging democracies such as Nigeria. However, the idealism of the 1990s, that civil society groups would be the panacea for democratic limitations, are not revealing themselves as once anticipated for a plethora of reasons. This research work investigated the impact of civil society group?s efforts on democratization in the face of Nigeria postcolonial era.