Social Change In Nigeria

Governments in the developing nations of Africa invest much of their peoples scarce resources in social development programs, often without much evaluation or any knowledge of the potential outcomes. Written by a social psychology consultant, Denis Ugwuegbu, Social Psychology and Social Development in Nigeria puts forth a calm, expert, and systematic evaluation of some government policies under military dictators in Nigeria. The programs and policies studied range from government efforts to create a homogenous multicultural cohesive national unity in Nigeria to the nations perception of the Nigeria police and military coups. Social Psychology can empower a developing nation to participate in social policy democracy. Important insights, conclusions, and recommendations for action are offered along with advocacy for social development program and policy evaluation for practitioners and social scientists interested in research about national development. Social Psychology and Social Change in Nigeria is the first book of its kind to be written in Africa, for Africa and other developing nations with clarity and enough detail to make it accessible to an audience beyond professional social scientists.

Anthony Smith's important work on the concept of social change, first published in 1973, puts forward the paradigm of historical change as an alternative to the functionalist theory of evolutionary change. He shows that, in attempting to provide a theory of social change, functionalism reveals itself as a species of 'frozen' evolutionism. Functionalism, he argues, is unable to cope with the mechanisms of historical transitions or account for novelty and emergence; it confuses classification of variations with explanation of processes; and its endogenous view of change prevents it from coming to grips with the real events and transformations of the historical record. In his assessment of functionalism, Dr Smith traces its explanatory failures in its accounts of the developments of civilisation, modernisation and revolution. He concludes that the study of 'evolution' is largely irrelevant to the investigation of social change. He proposes instead an exogenous paradigm of social change, which places the study of contingent historical events at its centre.