The Adventure to Democracy
301100190
Simon Fraser University

The Adventure to Democracy
In the midst of the prevalence of democratic transitions, a number of developing countries are seeking to achieve the successful consolidation of civil order in modern days. Among those participants, Mexico and Nigeria has been spotlighted for the completely contrastive endings at the end of their long-adventures towards democratization since their independence; Mexico, from its independence, has maintained the political stability despite the authoritarian single-party regime and even accomplished the solid democratization at the time of the 2000 election whereas Nigerian regime has been deteriorated by a series of military cues d’états and
It also shortly depicts the famous event of embezzlement, the cement scandal which was “the massive importation of subsidized cement by senior military officers in order to skim public funds” taken place in 1976(pg 8, ICG, 2006). The misconducts such as embezzlement and rent-seeking behaviours reduce the amount of oil share allowed to citizens and citizens responded to these undemocratic attitudes of government by resisting government in forms of solidary ethno-regional groups to enhance their share of oil profits. International Crisis Group notes that “as the resources from petroleum exports became the main source of revenue, state patronage and rent-seeking became pervasive (pg 22, ICG, 2006).” While oil production led Nigerian government to misconduct and degenerate the ethnic and regional splits, the oil production in Mexico animated the domestic society and gave the opportunity to test Mexican’s patriotism. Josephus Daniels describes the brave challenge of Mexican government under Cardenas that nationalized the foreign companies’ properties when the foreign companies ignored the Mexican oil workers’ demand (pg 452, Daniels, 2003). The decision to expropriate all foreign oil properties brought about the huge