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Title: | Civilianizing Military Rule: Conditions and Processes of Political Transmutation in Ghana and Nigeria |
Authors: | Durotoye, Yomi Griffiths, Robert J. |
Year: | 1997 |
Periodical: | African Studies Review |
Volume: | 40 |
Issue: | 3 |
Period: | December |
Pages: | 133-160 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Ghana Nigeria |
Subjects: | democracy democratization civil-military relations Politics and Government Military, Defense and Arms Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/524969 |
Abstract: | It is now widely accepted that, in many cases, the democratization process that began in Africa in 1990 has been crippled by several factors. A potential obstacle that has received little examination is the trend, particularly in West Africa, of military rulers resigning their commissions and competing in 'democratic' elections designed and supervised by their regimes. The authors call this phenomenon political transmutation. Focusing on Ghana and Nigeria, they examine the processes and certain necessary conditions that tend to permit the perpetuation of military rule through its transmutation into a 'civilian' regime. They argue that the ability of Flight Lieutenant J.J. Rawlings to transmute his military regime was largely a function of the advantage of a reconstructed civil society; the pattern of distribution of the rewards of economic reform; Western support of the transmutation attempt, which was probably an outgrowth of Rawlings' relative success at economic reform; and a relatively cohesive military. Babangida did not have these advantages and his attempt at transmutation in 1993 failed. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |