A Theoretical Framework for Understanding the Political Economy of Development Planning Failures in Federal African States: Insights from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa

This study constructs a theoretical framework to explain the systematic failure of formal development planning in federal African states, drawing comparative insights from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa over the period 2000 to 2023. Despite the proliferation of long-term development plans across Africa, implementation rates and transformative outcomes remain deeply unsatisfactory, suggesting that existing theoretical frameworks inadequately capture the structural and political dynamics that derail planning processes. Drawing on classical development planning theory, institutionalist political economy, and recent comparative governance literature from 2019 to 2024, the study employs a constructivist qualitative comparative design. Elite interviews are conducted with 90 senior policy architects, development economists, planning commissioners, and independent governance scholars across the three countries. An extensive review of development plan documents, programme evaluations, and political economy assessments is undertaken. Grounded theory and cross-case analytical synthesis are applied to generate a theoretically grounded explanatory model. The study expects to generate an original analytical framework centred on four theoretical mechanisms: elite interest fragmentation, vertical planning-implementation dissonance, institutional isomorphic mimicry, and planning legitimacy decoupling. These mechanisms explain why plans are formulated with apparent commitment but are abandoned or subverted during implementation. The proposed framework advances existing planning theory, applies to federal governance architectures, and has transferable relevance beyond Africa. Findings contribute an original theoretical contribution to development studies and inform the design of politically anchored, implementation-focused planning systems in federal African states. Keywords: development planning theory, political economy, federalism, Africa, comparative analysis