Resource information
This paper is one of a series aimed at
deepening the World Bank’s capacity to follow through on
commitments made in response to the World Development Report
(WDR) 2011, which gave renewed prominence to the nexus
between conflict, security, and development. Nigeria is a
remarkable illustration of how deeply intractable the cycle
of poverty, conflict, and fragility can become when tied to
the ferocious battles associated with the political economy
of oil. This paper places the corpus of analytic and
programmatic work concerning institutional reform in
conversation with a now substantial body of work on resource
politics and most especially, the debate over the
politico-institutional character (sometimes called political
settlements or pacting arrangements associated with the
order of power) and reform landscape of the petro-state.
Recent institution reform policy writing appears to have
little to say about the political and economic conditions in
which crises and institutional disjunctures may authorize,
and thereby enable, agents to embark on institutional
reforms. The authors focus on Edo state for two reasons.
First, it does not on its face appear to be an obvious
location in which to explore a reform experience, given its
entanglement in the Niger Delta conflict and the maladies
typically associated with state fragility. Second, Edo is of
interest also because of the changes that its experience is
contributing to the World Bank country team’s effort to
engage operationally across all its instruments with the
political economy of institutional reform in Nigeria, its
largest client country in Africa.
