Sub-National Authoritarianism and Democratic Stagnation in Nigerian Federalism: An Original Theory and Empirical Test

This dissertation develops and empirically tests an original theory of sub-national authoritarianism within Nigerian federalism, arguing that Nigeria's democratic stagnation cannot be explained primarily at the national level but requires systematic analysis of how entrenched authoritarian governance practices at the state level undermine democratic consolidation across the federal system. Building on and extending Gibson's foundational work on sub-national authoritarianism in Latin American contexts to the distinctive features of Nigerian federalism, the dissertation proposes the Nigerian Sub-National Authoritarianism Theory, which identifies boundary control mechanisms, intra-party authoritarian discipline, and patronage network institutionalisation as the three constitutive mechanisms of sub-national authoritarian persistence. A mixed-methods comparative design covering 12 Nigerian states selected to represent variation on sub-national democracy scores across all six geopolitical zones is employed, combining an original sub-national democracy index constructed from 28 governance indicators, 90 in-depth interviews with politicians, civil servants, journalists, and civic leaders, and computational analysis of state legislative activity data from 2015 to 2023. Boolean Qualitative Comparative Analysis and comparative process tracing serve as the primary analytical tools. Three original theoretical contributions are made: the sub-national authoritarianism measurement methodology, the boundary control-patronage causal mechanism specification for the Nigerian federal context, and the identification of federal institutional reform levers most likely to erode sub-national authoritarian enclaves. Keywords: sub-national authoritarianism, Nigerian federalism, democratic consolidation, governance theory, QCA.