The Seeds of Power: ‘Good Governance’ in Nigeria’s Debt-Relief Gains

The political conditions for reform are often summed-up in the phrase ‘Good Governance’. While the technical nature of Good Governance has been widely discussed, implementing it is an exercise of political power. To identify what constitutes the exercise of power in a Good Governance regime, I conduct a case-study of Nigeria’s debt-relief gains, secured in 2005. Having established a simultaneous oil windfall shock as a suitable counterfactual, and drawing on field theory as an analytical framework, the analysis highlights how Good Governance is effective at solving both principal-agent and collectiveaction problems. In resolving the former, reformists openly impose their interests in hierarchical relations (Lukes’ first-face of power), and in resolving the latter, reformists can avoid conflict by coordinating actions around mutual interests (the second-face of power). These exercises of power are complementary. The ability to exercise this power emerged over time, endogenously, from the unorganized social space that followed the debt-relief deal. Power accumulated through strategies including the import and export of resources between fields and the construction of joint social meaning. The analysis indicates that Good Governance has limited pre-conditions, develops on the basis of both existing social conditions and skilled agency, and consists of the exercise of multiple forms of political power rather than direct institutional