TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction
............................................................................................................
1
1.1 Statement of The Problem
...................................................................................
3
1.3 Objectives of the Study
.......................................................................................
3
1.4 Theoretical Frame Work
......................................................................................
3
1.5
Research Hypothesis Assumptions
................................................................. 7
1.6 Research Methodology.........................................................................................
7
1.7 Significance of the Study.....................................................................................
7
1.8 Scope And Limitation
.........................................................................................
8
1.9 Definition of Terms
............................................................................................
9
CHAPTER TWO
2.0
Literature Review
.............................................................................................
10
2.1 The Role Of Television And Radio In
Foreign Policy Making ........... 10
2.2 The
Role of Telephone, (Fixed and Mobile)
................................................. 12
2.3 The Role of the Internet and Computer
Sattelite ............................... 14
2.
4 Negative Impact of ICT in Foreign
Policy Making ................................. 16
CHAPTER THREE
3.0 Foreign Policy Making In Nigeria:
Historical Survey ........................ 19
3.1 Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa's Foreign
Policy (1960-1966) ................. 22
3.2 General Yakubu Gowon's Administration
Foreign Policy (1967- 1975) ...... 24
3.3 Shehu
Shagari's Foreign Policy (1979-1982) ...................................................
26
3.4 General Ibrahim B. Babangida's
Foreign Policy (1985- 1993). .............. 27
3.5 General Sani Abacha's Foreign Policy
(1993-1998) .................................... 28
3.6 Nigeria's Foreign Policy under President
Obasanjo to Date (1999-2014) ....... 29
3.7
Essential Issues of Assessment
........................................................................ 32
CHAPTER FOUR
4.0 The Impact of RCR on Nigeria Foreign
Policy Making ......................... 34
4.1 Negative Impact of ICT in Nigeria Foreign
Policy Making .......... 37
4.2 Constraints That Militated Against the
Application of ICT in Nigeria Foreign Policy
Making ................................ 41
4.3 The
Way Forward For Effective Application Of Ict Foreign Policy Making
.......... 43
CHAPTER FIVE
5.0 Summary, Conclusion And Recommendation
......................................... 46
5.1 Summary
......................................................................................................
46
5.2
Conclusion
...................................................................................................
48
5.3
Recommendation
.........................................................................................
50
References
.................................................................................................................
53
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The recent advances in information
communication technology (ICT) especially on the aspect of foreign policy
making are becoming central to other processes, such as socio-economic and
political development of nation states and how nations relate to each other.
ICT offers new ways of exchanging information and transacting business and new
style of interaction between countries, change the nature of financial and
other service sectors and provides efficient use of human and institutional
capabilities of countries in both the public and private sector especially on
the field of foreign policy information communication technology (ICT) and vast
improvement in aviation technology and other things, have reduced the distance
between states, which enhances the opportunity for foreign policy maker to
communicate directly. Infact, ICT has changed the way nation states relate to
each other. Prior to the second world war II, diplomacy was the sole
responsibility of the ambassadors they are often the representatives of their
respective state, but today, head of state can now directly communicate
through, telephone, fax, internet, in order to discuss and iron out differences
or negotiate differences which ambassadors cannot command.
As it is well known,
diplomacy is looked upon as the use of political influence to induce other
states to exercise their law making powers in the manner defined by the state
command and the task of diplomacy include among, other things, routine
representation, arbitration, negotiation and projection of common and political
interest of the country. This task is today highly facilitated by the existence
and application of ICT. Today ICT has penetrated almost all desirable domestic
instruments of foreign policy making of the country, in otherword’s for
effective application of either economic, diplomacy, military or cultural
instrument or both, the use of ICTS is imperative, in addition to all other
aspects of human development especially as it relates to foreign policy making.
The world today is rapidly moving towards
knowledge based on economic structures and information societies, which
comprise network of individuals, policy makers, firms and countries that are
linked electronically and inter-dependent relationships. Today the competitive
and comparative advantages of countries are gradually being determined by
access of ICT and knowledge for the pursuit of national interest.
Information Communication Technology (ICT) has
aided foreign policy makers such as diplomats, chief executives of ministry of
foreign affairs in various capacity of foreign policy making. It also aids them
to understand and explain decision-making process and relationship with the
bureaucracy, their power centers on pressure group in the formulation and
execution of foreign policy of the country.
The numerous advantages for the adaptation of
ICT in foreign policy decision and in other segment of human development are
endless. This by implication means that, foreign policy makers and other
segment of the economy in developing nations cannot but be aware of the trends
in ICT as employed by other countries of the world.
Therefore, Nigeria foreign policy would be
looked upon from its principled objective of promoting and protecting the
country’s national interest and its interaction with the outside world and its
relationship with other countries in the international system among other
objectives. Therefore, ICT serve as a critical and crucial element to the
Nigeria foreign policy decision makers.
1.1 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
v Information is said to be central in foreign policy making and
analysis. Most countries today both developed and developing have expectedly
paid significant attention to the development of ICT more especially in the
conduct and salesmanship of their respective national interest. The issue at
stake, does ICT make any positive impact on foreign policy making? That is
whether the importance of ICT is recognized and applied in Nigeria foreign
policy making. The research seeks to determine the aims, objectives, achievements
and constraints of ICT in Nigeria quest to join in the race for technological
development to pursue a dynamic foreign policy in line with trends of
globalization, market liberation, and foreign relations.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective is to investigate the role
of information communication technology in information dissemination on Nigeria
foreign policy. Other objectives include:
1. To
examine the relationship between information communication technology and
foreign policy making in Nigeria.
2. To
inquire the level of impact of ICT on Nigeria foreign policy.
3. To
identify constraints that militates against the application of ICT in foreign
policy making in Nigeria.
4. To
recommend measure for reducing or eliminating these constraints
1.4 THEORETICAL FRAME WORK
In line with the tradition in new political
science and international relations of borrowing perspectives and frame of
reference from various disciplines a number of writes, such as Nobert wiener,
Karl W. Deutsch among a number of have developed a new approach in political
analysis especially on the aspect of international relation on the basis of
communication theory and cybernetics. The communication theory, as it is
called, looked at the task of government and politics in the scene of process
of steering and coordinating human efforts toward the attainment of a set of
goal within this general frame work, here decision is taken to be the central
mechanism through which this process manifests itself.
Communication
theory as an idea was put forward by Nobert wiener in the 1940s wiener, noted
an advancement in information transfer through electronic process or processes
such as radar, solar etc. however, the application of communication theory in
international politics especially on international relations was develop and
popularized by Karl Deutsch and according to him cybernetics that is the
science of communication and control which represent a shift in the center of
interest from drive to steering when
applying to politics this means an emphasis to decision, control, and
communication rather than power which are without the doubt been the primary
and at the same time exclusive interest of political scientist.
This theory tries
to treat the government as a decision making system based on various
information flows. Here Deustch (Leiber 1973) introduced two basic concepts,
the concept relating to operating structure under this concept, there is
receptor or receptor systems, as
Deutsch like to call them. Political
system receives information from domestic as well as foreign. Here the notion
of reception covers several functions beyond the simple intake of those
information’s like scanning operations, selection of information, data
processing, etc here what Deutsch is trying to explain is the way and nature
under which information is process for processing the incoming information
within the decision-making upon by the structures representing memory, value
complexes and the entire apparatus. Information are handled and acted
environment itself which make actual decisions.
The second category
of concepts, dealing with flows and processes is perhaps even more important.
Information being a patterned set information flows which together for a
communication network, this involve several kinds of other concepts.
Particularly of channels, load and load capacity. Load capacity is determine by
the numbers and types of channels available for infirm flow, while bad relates
to the overall intake of information at any given time.
In political system loads vary
substantially over time as well as differ significantly in quality. Here
Deutsch went further to specify a number of other factors to which load
capacity is very intimately related, such as responsiveness, fidelity
background, noise and distortion. It is also important to note that the
communication system is capable of associating, locating and bringing forward
past experience that are relevant to the analysis of the incoming information.
This has been described as the notion of recall. There is also as combination
capacity which Deutsch affirmed that, this is a situation which a wide range of
information inputs is such a way to make and implement decision with positive
consequences for the attainment of goals, it therefore follows, that political
system specially the aspect of international relation according to the
communication theory can be studied as networks of communication channels and
we may even be in such a way as to reach this goals. Deutsch claimed unless the
governments are receiving continue flows of information regarding the distance
between their original situation and the objective or the goal by wish to
attain, the distance between their present position and the goal, and the
extent to which their effort to reach the goal succeed, which today is made
possible with the advert of information communication technology and its
related trends.
The frame work of
the communication theory went further to included four quantitative factors in
this analysis as follows; information load, lag and gain. For the purpose of
this study we shall concentrate on the load factors, which Deutsch refers as
the ability of an organization to predict the future state of the environments.
So as to make an effective way of anticipating the necessary adjustment in the
advancement of humanity, In other words the decision makers of a political
system must therefore attempt to take into consideration and also predict some
discussion that may be favourable to the environment, that is the most
important future of political system which have its own capacity to keep up
with the changing environment.
At this point it is
important to know that communication approach can aid foreign policy decision
maker among other groups to be able to judge the capacity of a political system
more accurately in terms of control its exercises over the entire political process,
the ability with which it is able to maintain conditions necessary of its goal.
Furthermore the
communication theory has its ability of providing to the state the capacity of
changing its goals and learning by experience the concept of goal changing feed
back and learning. A political system therefore has the opportunity to change
its goal deliberately when ever it is needed. Goals are dynamic not static
therefore changes in the cultural pattern and personality structure of the
political elite may bring about changes in the goals sought by a political
decision system.
From the aforementioned analysis the
communication approach provides significant insight into the dynamic of foreign
policy. Indeed movement in the international system flow from hundreds of
decision made by government and non-government institutions and enterprises
around the world which are often derived flows of timely information is should
not therefore forget that the approach emphases
primarily on decision making as a process and not so much on the results
or consequences of decision. This theory concentrate upon national decision
process so as to determine what influence or shape relations between state’.
This study therefore adopt this approach as its theoretical frame work due to
its viability and relevant in foreign policy making in Nigeria as elsewhere in
the globe.
1.5 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS ASSUMPTIONS
A hypothesis is a
tentative answer put forward by a researcher as the expected answer to research
problem or question. It’s called tentative answer because the answer is put
forward even before the researcher goes into the field to collect data. In this
study, the researcher put forward the following hypothesis to serve as a guide
for this work
There is relationship between information
communication technology and the development of Nigerian foreign policy
1.6 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research work rely heavily on
secondary sources of data. Data is collected from books, journals, research
thesis and dissertations, internet, conference papers, daily newspaper and
weekly magazines. Data is also drawn from radio and television programs. The
information gathered from the materials will be presented, reviewed and
analysed using integrated method of data analysis based on and to achieve the
purpose of the research.
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This research work is
aimed at aiding Nigerian as a nation state to forge ahead in her quest for
socio-economic development, reduce poverty, un-employment and raise the
country’s stature from an economic dependent country to an economic independent
nation, through the used of ICT.
It also aimed to
improve on Nigeria’s conduct of foreign policy decisions and to improve
Nigerians status and relevance in international politics, by show casing
Nigeria economic potentials, culture, tradition etc. it would also serve as a
springboard to foreign policy makers in their quest to pursue a dynamic foreign
policy in line with the present area of globalization, through the acquisition
of relevant modern ICT facilities, and to add value or contribution to existing
knowledge in the dynamic of foreign policy making, in the present information
technology age. To reap from the expected gains of ICT especially in the aspect
of the economic which is identify as a powerful instrument in the pursue of
national interest of states, through embracing all relevant ICT facilities and
purse and adopting all necessary policies.
1.8 SCOPE AND LIMITATION
The geographical coverage of this study is
Nigerian as a nation state. While its content focused on the discussion of the
impact of information, communication technology in policy making between 1999
and 2014 because this is the time when democracy come to stay in Nigeria state.
In so doing the focus will be how information communication technology is
applied in retrieving storing and dissemination of information and how this
information is communicated and made available to Nigeria foreign policy
makers. However, by virtue of the uniqueness of this research work, i envisaged
the problem for data collection may be a hindrance for this work, this is due
to the fact that, the ministry in-charge of making foreign policy decisions as
a matter of policy do not divulged information easily couple with the existence
of bureaucratic bottle necks which makes access to data from these offices
difficult. The human factor is also a hindrance for accurate information
retrieval i.e. the interviewer are often sceptical in giving out the true
position of things as regard to their official positions regardless of the fact
that names identities are often not mentioned. In addition the issue of limited
resources and time factor is a hindrance that make this research work to be
limited to Nigeria.
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
For
the purpose of this study the following terms are to be used. Thus,
1.
Impact
2.
Information
3.
Communication technology
4.
Foreign policy.
Impact:
For the purpose of this work the study adapted menou’s definition of impact
which is referred to as a process that causes transformation of a phenomenon
both positive and negative aspect of it.
Information:
Can be define as the knowledge that was unknown to the receiver prior to its
receipt, while in a related development Michael (1989) viewed the term as the support
information system (computerized and manual) within an organization and those
releasing out to customer and suppliers.
Newton defined ICT to includes all the totality of a communication system which involves all the equipment which must
be connected together in order to send receive information such as computer,
fax, television, radio, in focus projector, digital camera, telephone.
Foreign policy:
Is define as system of activities enforced by community for changing the
behaviour of other states and for adjusting their norm to the international
environment while Thomas Schelling define it as complicated and disorderly
different to predict, full of surprises, demanding parts choice that must be
base on judgment rather than analysis taking place in a world that changes
rapidly which memory and experiences are likely out of data, foreign policy
project the image of a country.
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