ABSTRACT
Chapter nine concludes this study of state-civil society nexus on democracy struggles in Nigeria. The work presents the integral state as a political field that provides structures upon which a dialectical logic unfolds in the process of struggles between competing agencies seeking to institutionalize and embed political practices that suit their interests. This includes contest for different institutional forms and procedures for organizing political rule. The concept of “relations of forces” is drawn from Gramsci, and applied in a novel manner to broaden the perspectives and analyse a novel situation namely, Nigeria. The deployment of relations of forces went back to Hegel and Marx to demonstrate the elaborations of their dialectical systems as other expressions of the idea of relations of forces. A historical survey of relations of forces in Nigeria beginning with the context of the press reveals repressive use of institutional framework of the state by the dominant forces. This behaviour cuts across the colonial and post-colonial periods. The institutional forms of these constraints are usually presented as laws and policies. Similar coercive projection of force is extended to activist organized labour and other associational groups. Relations of forces also manifest in the dialogues for constitution making and structuring of state institutions in which dominant forces condition the dialogue to revolve mostly around the procedural/minimalist democracy. The crux of the recommendation is that a fully democratized polity necessarily requires emphasis on both procedural and substantive elements of democracy which creates democratic citizenship.
