CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Most countries in the have an intergovernmental system that is based on the principle of cooperation between the three spheres of government – local, provincial/Regional and national. While responsibility for certain functions is allocated to a specific sphere, many other functions are shared among the three spheres.

However, the Constitution specifically envisages that as municipalities develop the necessary capacity, the administration of many functions that are currently the responsibility of national and provincial/regional government will be assigned to municipalities. While this has been taking place, very often the devolution has only been partial – with municipalities not being given the necessary funds, scope of responsibilities or without their being subject to clear forms of accountability for their performance.

Over the medium term, government is planning for more functions to be devolved to municipalities. There is therefore a need for clear principles to guide such assignments to ensure that there are appropriate incentives, funding and accountability arrangements. Ideally, the framework should provide municipalities with access to revenue sources that are commensurate with the powers and functions that they are responsible for (Maddick 1966:211).

The first leading scholar to advance an intergovernmentalist perspective on European integration was Stanley Hoffmann (1963:96, 1964b:29, 1966:45) a US academic with European roots. Hoffmann, who moved to the United States from France in the 1950s, was a Harvard professor from 1955 and worked there his whole life, contributing importantly to development of the Center of European Studies at that university. His intellectual mentor was the French international relations philosopher Raymond Aron (Hoffmann, 1985:74).

Hoffmann’s intergovernmentalist approach offered a rebuttal to Ernst B. Haas’s theory of neofunctionalism (1958, 1964; see also Lindberg, 1963:81). Intergovernmentalism differed from neofunctionalism in that it examined the prevalence and continued dominance of member states in European integration. It stressed that state actors are able to stop, can majorly derail, and are in the driver’s seat of European integration.

The intergovernmentalist view of European integration gained popularity from the mid-1960s onward, because General Charles de Gaulle, president of France at the time, was acting as described (see also Hoffmann, 1964a). During the 1960s, the French president was able to block the entry of the United Kingdom (UK) into the European Community.

The second half of 1965 was marked by the so-called “empty chair crisis,” when the French president, provoked by the Commission but also by the leaders of the other member states, opposed the expansion of the Community budget to pay for the common agricultural policy (CAP) and the move to qualified majority vote (Davignon, 2006:111).

France recalled its permanent representatives and declared it would no longer attend Council meetings—hence leaving their “seat” empty (Ludlow, 1999, 2006:77). The situation was resolved in January 1966 with a compromise that enabled member states to retain a veto on issues that were of “very important national interest.” Thus, on the face of it, the intergovernmentalist approach seemed to portray well the process of integration in the late 1960s.

In the 1970s, Western Europe was confronted with various crises and difficulties, such as the oil crises, rising unemployment, stagflation, and diverging ideas about how to tackle these challenges. Caporaso and Keeler (1995:37) described this period as the “doldrum” years, and Giersch (1985:54) called it a period of “Eurosclerosis.” During this time, neither of the dominant integration theories was attracting much attention.

Given this context, it was perhaps hardly surprising that there were few attempts at formalizing intergovernmentalism in these years. Scholars such as Paul Taylor provided an overview of the usefulness of intergovernmentalism to explain European integration, especially given that the neofunctionalists themselves and others were writing about the limitations of their theoretical approach (Haas, 1975:24, 1976; Kaiser, 1971:90).

With European integration picking up momentum in the late 1980s and 1990s, there was renewed interest in explaining why European integration happened (Corbey, 1993, 1995:65; Tranholm-Mikkelsen, 1991:74). Neofunctionalism and intergovernmentalism re-emerged (some say were constructed; Rosamond, 2016:13) as competing grand, all-encompassing, theories, offering a single theory to explain these developments. Andrew Moravcsik, a student of Stanley Hoffmann, introduced a revised form of intergovernmentalism, which he called “liberal” intergovernmentalism  (Moravcsik, 1991:87, 1993b:34,

1998:18; see also Moravcsik, 2020:231). His core message resembled the work of English historian Alan Milward (1984:200). In the 1990s and 2000s, numerous studies engaged with this approach, often either by criticizing it or by placing the study at hand in relation to it (Kleine & Pollack, 2018:1494; Moravcsik & Schimmelfennig, 2009:67). In the mid-2010s, Bickerton, Hodson, and Puetter (2015:85) argued that in various policy areas intergovernmentalism had dominated the post-Maastricht era. They used the term new intergovernmentalism to describe the process whereby member states are dominating the integration process.

From the mid-1980s onwards, a -wave of decentralization reforms which are intended to, give local councils adequate powers to engage their own development with regards to their communities swept across the developing world. A wide range of governments embarked on state reform processes aimed at transferring responsibilities, resources and authority from higher to lower levels of government. Each country followed its own trajectory related to historic legacies, geographic features, political factors, and prevailing socio-economic conditions and culture.

The first president of the United -Republic of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, made a powerful statement in 1968 on the need for participation of the people in communities for development. He stated that: “Development is the participation of people in a mutual learning experience involving themselves, their local resources, external change agents and outside resources. People are not developed; they can only develop themselves by participation and co-operative activities which affect their wellbeing.

People are not being developed when they are herded like animals into new ventures”. In this statement people are understood to be an important instrument in their own development. Actual and sustainable development can only be obtained by making the people who benefit an integral part of the development process. This includes involvement in the decision-making and in the phase of implementation.

The goal of intergovernmental relations are said to promote peace and harmony among the three teas of government which can the Federal State and Local Government. To accelerate the achievement of self-reliant economy. In so doing intergovernmental relations will help to minimize inter-jurisdictional conflicts among the various level of government.

Also to boost greater natural economic integration through the activities of three levels of government. Again to enhance the emergence of co-operative rather than competitive federation there is also need to enhance effective and efficient utilization of available human and material resources among the three levels of government.

To help solve the problem of rural and urban poverty. To achieve a situation where there is special need for integrating programmes on a nationwide scale. To look into the situation where states, Local Government unit of the Federal set up have responsibilities with on resources base to perform them (John Nwafor: Unpublished work).

The achievement of the objectives of intergovernmental relations is dependent on some social factors within the Nigerian social system. Some social factors include the political setting and the state of two economies in the nation. Looking at the political setting, the intergovernmental relations is basically based on the three tiers of government that is the Federal, State and Local Government.

But come to look at that, the Federal and State Government is said to have more autonomy than the Local Government due to the fact that they are the last tier of government (John Nwafor: Unpublished Work). The other tier of government still tell them that what to do, how to make their own policies, how to elect/appoint those to rule them like the chancellor or chairman and so on. Local Government is still dependent on the other tier of government making them too subordinate and loyal (Nwoked, Palph 2002:56).

To this, there should be greater independent of the state and the Local Government in the Federal Government for their survival and performance of fundamental responsibilities. There should be several reforms which should let to the recognition of the Local Government as the third tier of government with relative autonomy and jurisdictional powers as provided for the constitution.

Another problem is the state of the nation’s economy. The nation’s economy really influenced the nature and scope of intergovernmental relations in the Local Government in Nigeria. The wealth of any nation is a key factor in determining its pattern of material relation. Between 1960 and 1970, the basis of fiscal relation between the Federal, State, and Local Government were richer and more power full than the Local Government. But this problem will come to an end if the Local Government has greater control of the tax revenue.

The Local Government should control 50% of the tax revenue allocation of its area without the Federal or State Government Interference. They should also receive grant and aids from outside and within the country, making them powerful and independent of their own. Their Federation Allocation Accountant should be granted to them annually or monthly as the case may be. They should be allowed to run their affairs especially when it comes to monetary matters (F Okoll and Anah O. 2002:134).

In so doing channel, of communication should be at its high level between the Federal, State and Local Government in order to produce an effectiveness due to the fact that an intergovernmental relation is relationship between the three theirs of government.

Access to quality education, advanced sanitation services, good road networks, portable water supplies and health care amongst individuals and nations constitute a problem.

It is widely acknowledged that significant changes in the quality of life of the poor can be registered through popular participation in decision making at local levels. This partly explains why the concept of decentralization has become a significant dimension of political and administrative reform in many developing countries since the late 1980s.

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