Power, Knowledge, and Design: A Political Economy Analysis of Industrial Design’s Role in Nigerian Development Policy

Industrial design has remained peripheral to Nigerian development policy discourse despite its documented capacity to drive economic value creation, industrial competitiveness, and social innovation. This doctoral study conducts a political economy analysis of the structural, institutional, and ideological factors that have marginalised industrial design within Nigerian development policy over four successive National Development Plans, from the Third Plan of 1975 through to the Nigeria Agenda 2050 framework. Drawing on Foucauldian discourse analysis, political economy of knowledge theory, and design policy scholarship, the study examines official development policy documents, budget allocation records, and institutional governance structures alongside in-depth interviews with forty-eight policy makers, design institution leaders, industry representatives, and academic design scholars. The analysis traces how competing knowledge claims from engineering, architecture, and arts ministries have historically crowded out industrial design from policy recognition, how colonial legacies have shaped the administrative categorisation of design as craft rather than industry, and how global development financing frameworks have reinforced this marginalisation by excluding design from eligible sectoral categories. Three structural mechanisms of design policy exclusion are theorised: disciplinary boundary policing, administrative category lock-in, and development finance design blindness. An original Design Policy Integration Model is developed, specifying the institutional, discursive, and coalition-building strategies required to achieve meaningful industrial design integration within Nigeria's long-term development planning architecture. Contributions advance both design policy scholarship and the political economy of knowledge in African development contexts. Keywords: design policy, political economy, Nigerian development, knowledge power, design governance.