Governing Civil Society in Nigeria and Zimbabwe: A Question of Policy Process and Non-State Actors’ Involvement

Abstract

Sovereign nations have the right to regulate the activities and operations of civil society organizations (CSOs) within their jurisdiction. The nature of official policy controls bears important implications for the breath and health of associational life, to the degree that they are relaxed, restrictive, or intrusive. Since nations in Africa have often been seen to subvert the growth and impact of CSOs, this article traces the policy controls that govern CSOs in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Within the context of policy change, the article employs the Advocacy Coalition Framework in an effort to trace the policy process in these two countries. It particularly focuses on CSOs-focused policies and on clarifying the role and influence of non-state actors. Although political elites continue to dominate the policy process, non-state actors increasingly permeate the process through various formal and informal strategies, including the use of venues and influencing public opinion. Overall, CSOs-focused policies reflect distorted beliefs originating from the West’s preoccupations with a homogeneous, governance-focused African civil society.

How is the Advocacy Coalition Framework Doing? Some Issues since the 2014 Agenda.

“…The study was initially motivated by our interest in verifying how the most recent ACF applications have addressed the research agenda proposed in 2014 and reinforced in 2018. During our study, however, we noted an almost total lack of Latin American works covered by recent reviews, with only one Brazilian study identified (CARVALHO, 2001). In 2015, however, a group of Brazilian authors promoted a review of the use of ACF in Brazilian theses and dissertations and found 23 applications of the model published between 2010 and 2013 (CAPELARI; ARAÚJO; CALMON, 2015).…”

“…Sabatier and Weible (2007) argue, however, that its objective is much greater, because the model should make it possible to understand the belief system of the coalitions and their relationship with policy change. The predominance of studies of a descriptive nature shows that the ACF is still often used to identify coalitions and describe how their actions influence the policy process (BARNES; VAN LAERHOVEN;DRIESSEN, 2016;CHIKOTO-SCHULTZ;UZOCHUKWU, 2016;MCDONALD;GALLAGHER, 2015), without, however, establishing the causal relationships between the model's categories.…”

“…In terms of elite beliefs, although studies show that elites continue to dominate the policy process, they also highlight that non-state actors have increasingly permeated the policy process, through formal and informal strategies, such as the use of venues and the influence of public opinion (CHIKOTO-SCHULTZ; UZOCHUKWU, 2016;LEE, 2016;WONG, 2016). The devil shift phenomenon is also not limited to political elites, as argued by Leong (2015), who gives empirical support to this idea, by showing evidences that devil shift can be applied more broadly to different coalition actors, including private operators (LEONG, 2015).…”