Coercive Diplomacy in Foreign Policy: Evaluating Nigeria's Carrot and Stick Strategy

The rise of states as dominant political actors in the international arena has elevated diplomacy as an ongoing practice. Even at this, diplomacy has changed dramatically because of an evolving international political system. Thus, foreign policy elites must make choices between the best diplomatic tools to use. Though diplomatic tools are numerous, this study focuses on Nigeria's use of inducement (carrots) and the brandishing of brutish force (sticks) to achieve its foreign policy goals. Nigeria's capability to back its foreign policy objectives with coercive diplomacy has not been quite pronounced over the years. It is due to this uncertainty that there is the need to examine Nigeria's diplomatic interactions with some selected countries in the West African sub-region, the country's sphere of influence. These countries are the Republic of Niger, Chad, and Equatorial Guinea. There are doubts whether Nigeria has been conducting its foreign relations with most states based on principled national interests. Though this assertion equally applies to the three states, it is the duty of this study to show how Nigeria, a giant African state, has managed to meander between its carrots and stick strategies. The study relies on extant relevant literature in the field of international studies. Our findings reveal that Nigeria, possibly for lack of capability, has not gained exponentially from coercive diplomacy using the carrot and stick strategies.