When   Friday, November 13, 2009   Time   12:00 PM - 1:00 PM  
Where   Buffett Center Conference Room 1902 Sheridan   map it
Audience   - Faculty/Staff - Student
Contact   Krzysztof Kozubski  
Group   Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies
More Info   http://www.bcics.northwestern.edu

Faculty & Fellows Colloquium » The State and Enterprise in Nigeria: On the Political Economy of Private Sector Development

Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu, Sociology

Much of immediate post independence Africa started economic development on a policy of a mixed economy comprising state and private participation in national economies. The failure of the policy of mixed economy, the fall of the Soviet political economy as role model for some countries, and the ascendancy of neo-liberalism as the global economic paradigm, coupled with the wave of global democratization, motivated the embrace of neo-liberalism across the continent.

 

Nigeria, a leading country on the continent, vigorously pursued the neoliberal path through an aggressive privatization policy and other forms of economic deregulation. The latter automatically places entrepreneurs and the private sector at the center of economic development. The extent to which Nigerian entrepreneurs as a social category can effectively tackle this challenge remains a primary question especially when examined through internal and external measures of the business environment. Put another way, does, and should, the state play a role in private sector development? And what lessons can other African countries draw from the Nigerian experience?

 

Chikwendu Christian Ukaegbu, distinguished senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology, obtained his bachelor’s degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and his master’s and PhD in sociology and Certificate of African Studies from Northwestern University. Ukaegbu has served as a senior lecturer at the University of Nigeria, a senior Fulbright research fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting associate professor at Saratov State University, Russia, and at the Academy of International Economic Affairs, Hsin Chu, Taiwan. Ukaegbu has served as a professor and chair of Sociology, director of African American studies, and director of International Studies at the University of Wyoming. His teaching interests include social change, race & ethnicity, international development, African societies, African diaspora, political economy, comparative international crime & justice, formal organizations, urban sociology and global terrorism among others. Ukaegbu’s research focuses on economic development in Africa with Nigeria as his case country. He has researched and published on science & technology human capital, ethnicity & politics, indigenous entrepreneurship & enterprise management, public policy and human development. He is currently working on the intersection of politics, entrepreneurship, neo-liberalism and industrial development in Nigeria and Africa.