Decentralization and Representation in Nigerian Local Government: Bridging Ethnic, Religious, and Ge

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Decentralization and Representation in Nigerian
Local Government Bridging Ethnic, Religious, and
Gendered Cleavages in Kaduna, Nigeria
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Nigeria

• Why Nigeria?
• Pre-colonial Colonialism

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Nigeria

• Since 1960 Four Republics several Military
  dictatorships
• Federalism and Centralization
• Fourth Republic Tenuous balance put number of
  ethnic riots, religious tensions
• Creative Policies for redistribution
• State revenue allocations, state creation,
  federal character, decentralization

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Literature Review Decentralization

• Definition
• Some cases of success in Asia and Latin America
• Decentralization in Africa least studied
• Negatives Elite power is extended or conflict,
  end of local government
• Positives Civil Society redistribution

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Research Question

• Can Nigerian local government influence
  religious and ethnic conflict by ensuring
  adequate political representation of religious,
  ethnic, and gender interest groups?

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HYPOTHESES

• Hypothesis 1 There will be more ethnic and
  religious conflict in LGAs whose officials in
  legislative, executive, and supervisory roles are
  less ethnically- and religiously-representative
  of the LGA population.
• Hypothesis 2 LGAs with more ethnic conflict will
  have leaders who place less emphasis on coalition
  building and are more accessible to and work
  primarily with their respective identity and
  socio-economic groups.
• Hypothesis 3 More ethnic and religious conflict
  in LGAs that are less responsive to growing
  ethnic tension and violence and do not have
  prevention systems in place.
• Hypothesis 4 More conflict in LGAs that receive
  less economic, administrative, and political
  support from the national level.
• Hypothesis 5 More ethnic and religious conflict
  in areas that have a lengthy history of
  migration, which can fuel disagreements over land
  rights, and LGAs that do not act in coalitional
  manner.

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Methodology

• Unit of Analysis Local Government Area (LGA)
• Research Site Kaduna State, Nigeria
• Flashpoint for ethnic and religious conflicts,
  Sharia Law, land rights, boisterous civil
  society, struggle of LGAs to achieve political
  representation and various responses to conflict
• Kaduna LGAs are approximately clustered in
  religious and ethnic blocs and have variations in
  extent and frequency of conflict/non-conflict,
  rural/urban
• Focus the achievement of peace. Selected
  effective and ineffective LGA administrations
  allows for the examination of LGA with high
  degrees of ethnic and religious conflict and LGAs
  with low degrees of conflict. From these two
  groups of LGAs we will analyze how the
  independent variables contribute to ethnic and
  religious violence, as well as peace.

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Methodology

• 10 LGAs of 23 LGAs will be sampled
• (1) sampling 15-20 households (approx. 200)
  within a LGA for public attitudes regarding local
  governments performance and ethnic, religious,
  and gendered representation
• (2) purposive quantitative content analysis of
  Nigerian newspaper coverage (The Guardian,
  Vanguard, Daily Trust, and Gaskiya) for intensity
  and frequency of religious and ethnic conflict
• (3) archival research on LGA structures and
  budgets
• (4) direct observation of at least two LGA
  meetings (utilizing a schedule of observational
  guides) per LGA and
• (5) two-three focus groups and four-five expert
  interviews per LGA drawing on (a) elected
  officials, (b) community organizations of ethnic,
  religious, and gender affiliations, (c) youth
  groups (over the age of 18), and (d) the
  principal political parties.

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Matching Methodology to Variables

• Dependent variable
• Ethnic and Religious Conflict (Hypotheses 1, 2,
  3, 4, 5)
• Purposive content analysis, Expert interviews
• Independent Variables
• LGA Political Representation of Ethnic,
  Religious, and Gendered Groups in Relation to
  Ethnic Conflict (Hypothesis 1, 2)
• Federal Character Reports, Expert interviews,
  Direct observation, Archival research, Focus
  groups

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Matching Methodology to Variables

• Independent Variables
• Power Relations within and between the LGA and
  the State (Hypotheses 1, 2, 3, 4)
• Expert interviews, Direct observation, Archival
  research
• Power relations between LGA ethnic, religious,
  and gendered representations and civic groups
  (Hypothesis 2, Proposition 1)
• Expert interviews, Direct observation, Archival
  research, Focus groups
• Migration (Hypothesis 5)
• Interviews, Direct observation, Archival research
  

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Schedule, Preparation for Fieldwork, and Data
Reliability and Analysis

• Pre-dissertation Research
• b. Schedule

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Ethical Issues and Broader Impacts

• UCRIHS approval
• Broader Impacts Collaboration, and Theoretical
  Generalizability
• Regarding Misrepresentation Writing about women
  in Algeria is akin to entering the Pascalian
  wager. It involves taking the risk of sounding
  naïve and utopian, and failing in the attempt to
  aim at a new form of humanism based on a
  reassertion of the primacy of the human over the
  cultural. However, it also brings with it the
  possibility of winning the wager. Entertaining
  the thought of research as a wager is accepting
  the fact that it is uncertain, and that all of
  us, identity feminists, humanists, hardnosed
  scientists and others are part and parcel of the
  processes that made research of Algerian women
  fraught with uncertainty, and expropriated moral
  outrage (Lazreg, 200578)

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Na gode da yauwa!!
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Comments Questions

• Call for Sociology Book Donations for Bayero
  University any race, gender, class,
  globalization books needed