Public Policy and Administration Research www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-5731(Paper) ISSN 2225-0972(Online) Vol.5, No.12, 2015 80 Street Level Politics, local Governance and Local Power Structure in Northern Nigeria: A Social Network Analysis Usman Abbo 1 , Abubakar Ahmad Bello 2 , Mukaila Bello 3 , Zawiyah Binti Mohammed Zain 4 Ghazalie Shafie Graduate School of Government Universiti Utara Malaysia 1 Department of Public Administration, the federal Polytechnic Mubi 2 Department of Public Administration, the federal Polytechnic Mubi 3 Ghazalie Shafie Graduate School of Government Universiti Utara Malaysia 4 Abstract The key elements of successful local Governance have been identified as participation, sustainability, social inclusion and enabling policy environment. A successful policy framework must therefore involve initiators, Legitimizers, planners and executors, which in practical parlance are not guaranteed by mere decentralization. This is because it does not ensure inclusiveness in decision making. This paper therefore attempt to investigate the local power structure in northern Nigeria with the view to understand how decisions are made at the street level in order to ascertain how “open” or “close” is the prevailing local power structure in an average local Government. The paper adopts a qualitative methodology in which an in-depth face-to-face, semi-structure interview was conducted with six participants, two from each of the three geo-political zones of Northern Nigeria. The paper specifically tries to achieve four objectives which include: the identification of the local power structure of an average local Government in Northern Nigeria, determining the personal characteristics of the identified stakeholders, ascertaining their level of influence, lobbying capacity and bargaining power and developing a collaborative Governance framework that can ensure inclusiveness and greater citizen participation using the social network analysis. Keywords: Street level politics, local power structure, local Governance, Leadership, Northern Nigeria Introduction Street level politics as conceptualized by this paper connote a grassroots or local participation in political decisions and actions. It depicts a routine political life of the non-elite society, involving the political, social and economic capabilities of the ordinary people. Discussion on street level politics therefore, involves paying attention to the perceptions, behavior and political views of the ordinary people. A state is said to be established on the basis of contractual agreement between the rulers and the rules, where the underlying objective is the creation of a greatest happiness for the greatest number (Lambright, 2012). In order to achieve this fundamental objective the state must be structured in a manner it can positively respond to the yearnings and aspirations of the masses. In the ancient Greek city state this was achieved through directly involving everyone in the decision making framework. However, with the ever increase in size and complexity of the state due to demographic transition, the involvement of everyone in political decision becomes practical an impossible task hence the need for a selected few to makes decision on behalf of the many, through a system of representative democracy. The modern democracy thus revolves around a system under which the masses indirectly partake in making political decisions through selecting a person or a set of people who can serve as their proxies. However, challenges such as these of size of and its heterogeneity makes it difficult for just one person or group of persons at the center to effectively responds to the routine needs of the entire polity, there is therefore, the need for a political arrangement which can create avenue for more citizen involvement in decision. This brings about the concept of decentralization, under which the power of decision making is balkanize and delegated to subordinate local authorities with the view to bring it nearer to the ordinary people (Faguet, 2014). However, in most developing countries political discourse always tend to mirror the interest of the dominant national political elites to the detriment of the local people (Lambright, 2011). There exist in practical parlance very limited spaces for the grassroots society to be involved in the political process. For instance in northern Nigeria the political elites have dominated the both the national and local politics (Tonwe, 2013). Where such domination tends to have taking several dimensions such as political, economic and social, thereby significantly relegating the grassroots society into a mere object of politics without real significance as it lacks bargaining power. Conceptual clarification Local power structure Local power structure is the complex network of relationships between the recognized power holders and the interplay of their roles in a community. These power holders, otherwise known as leaders, direct the affairs of the society towards the achievement of objectives. Bratton (2012) describes power structure as “patterned distribution of authority and influence among various actors in a group or community”.