The Politics of Discontinuity and Its Medium Term Policy Outcomes: Evidence from Ghana

ABSTRACT

It is common knowledge in Ghana that during political transitions, programs set in previous Medium Term Development Plans (MTDP) by prior governments are abandoned without regard for their wider national implications. While the economic impacts of these political transitions have been researched, till date no known studies have taken a holistic look at the relation between political transition and the level of MTDP target achievement. This article attempts to fill this research gap using Ghana as a case and the policy learning and political business cycle literatures as organizing frames. Using annual MTDP data and semi-structured interviews with 25 officials who were involved in the implementation of MDTPs at the national and local government levels, this article finds that aberrations in target achievements across the entire period between 2001 and 2016 were the result of financial constraints and the pressures to adjust to political change.     

Ghana and the United Nations’ 1960s mission in the Congo: a Pan-African explanation

Abstract

This paper examines Ghana’s engagement in the United Nations (UN) mission during the Congo political crisis in the 1960s. The paper examines competing rationales behind Ghana’s decision to contribute towards the UN operation in the Congo. Ghana’s participation, to date, has been primarily understood through the lens of anti-colonial sentiment, African solidarity and regional influence. This article argues that in addition to these explanations, more attention must be paid to the value attached to pan-Africanism and the post-independence political union agenda of President Kwame Nkrumah. The article demonstrates how for Nkrumah, an operation under the aegis of the UN would prevent the powers of the Cold War (the United States and the Soviet Union) from interfering with the right of independent self-determination within Congo affairs. The UN mission, I contend, was a window of opportunity for Nkrumah’s larger pan-African ambition. Although Nkrumah’s mission failed, the article argues for the normative value of Nkrumah’s pan-African vision of promoting a regional structure to unify the African states as an important reason for Ghana’s participation in the Congo operation.     

Reconceptualizing Early Ghana

At the time of his death, Nehemia Levtzion had initiated a project to revise Ancient Ghana and Mali in the light of new scholarship since its original publication in 1973. He proposed that the question of origins and early development of Sudanic polities such as Ghana should be thoroughly reconsidered with regard to findings from research in archaeology and related disciplines. In this article, I discuss four topics (climate variability, sedentary-mobile interactions; external / internal dynamics; and organizational variability) central to Levtzion’s 1973 account of Ghana’s origins and the implications of research results to date for our understanding of early political consolidation in the Sahel.     

Scientific capacity building and the ontologies of herbal medicine in Ghana

Abstract

The Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine, a large herbal medicine research center in Ghana, has received important research equipment and training through a transnational research collaboration involving the Japanese International Cooperation Agency. By situating this project in regional debates about traditional medicine research priorities and the ontologies of plant medicine, this article argues that the collaboration had the perceived effect of standardizing research practices oriented toward drug discovery rather than the rationalization of crude drug preparations. This shows that “capacity-building” components of research collaborations should not be taken as the transfer of neutral goods from one location to another. They are charged with the political potential to make crucial decisions about the objects of research in postcolonial Africa.     

Something Funny Happened on the Way to Reform Success: The Case of Budget Reform Implementation in Ghana

Abstract

The current article discusses experience with budgeting and financial management reforms in Ghana and is particularly focused on the development of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) between 1998 and 2002. Evidence shows that this reform began well but faltered after an initial period of progress. A number of factors are referenced in trying to explain why reform implementation was derailed, including reform ownership and political will, organizational integration and organizational incentives, and strategic capacity. All of these factors are commonly presented as influences on reform implementation. The Ghanaian experience provides detail as to how such influences could work.     

The Contingencies of Societal Accountability: Examining the Link Between Civil Society and Good Government

Corruption interferes with and distorts the processes of political decision making and implementation, often to the disadvantage of the already disadvantaged. Yet our understanding of the factors that might propel a political system from lower to higher levels of probity remains speculative. This article examines the role of one category of actors often touted as an important countervailing force to political power: civil society. Existing case study research provides evidence that civil society can play a decisive role in holding public officials accountable, but that the success of such societal accountability is contingent upon a number of favorable contextual and institutional conditions. The analyses presented here use panel country data to examine whether the strength of civil society affects corruption. The results corroborate the findings of existing case studies; a vibrant civil society mitigates corruption but only provided that conditions such as political competition, press freedom, and government transparency exist in the country.     

Explaining and Justifying Authoritative Decisions: The Case of Controversial Facilities for the Homeless in Rotterdam

Abstract

This article analyses the ways in which local executive leaders rendered account for the decisions taken on where to locate 19 controversial facilities for the homeless in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Despite the non-participatory nature of the decision-making process, executive leaders acquired a remarkable level of authority for their decisions. The analysis suggests that the accountability strategies employed by local executive leaders contributed substantially to this success. Specific ways of rendering account for the decisions made concerning the locations enabled local executives to develop the political repertoires necessary to make the authoritative decisions they deemed indispensable. Most important among these ways were the executives' recognition of the importance of forming direct, informal accountability relationships with local residents, the proactive rendering of account and the executives' partial control over the forums to which account was rendered. The author concludes that an authoritative ‘Decide - Announce - Defend’ approach may not yet be out of fashion in modern local governance. The findings suggest that we will better understand the practice of public accountability if we supplement the existing conceptual frameworks for analysing and assessing public accountability arrangements with an alternative conception of accountability that focuses on the strategic aspects of rendering account. ^{1 1.}?An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2009 EGPA Permanent Study Group Local Governance and Democracy, in the section themed New Forms of Local Democracy. The author thanks two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on an earlier version of the article.      

Translating Legal Rights into Tenure Security: Lessons from the New Commercial Pressures on Land in Ghana

Abstract

Since the confluence of the food and oil price crises of the mid 2000s, Ghana has become a prime destination for large-scale farmland investments. While this trend could make valuable contributions to an ailing agricultural sector, the alienation of rural land for commercial ends could conversely have far-reaching implications for customary land rights. Through an analysis of the legislation protecting customary land rights and governing such the alienation of those rights and by contrasting this with practice, this article highlights some of the fundamental challenges in translating legal rights into tenure security in contemporary Ghana. It shows that despite the legal recognition of customary land rights, in practice customary land users are ultimately responsible for contesting infringements upon these rights. With traditional authorities able to capture substantial rents from the alienation process and government institutions offering scant oversight as a result of fragmented responsibilities, capacity constraints, and political disincentive, the protection of customary land rights is becoming increasingly contingent on community ‘capacity to claim’. Since poor access to information, unrealistic expectations and deference to traditional authority tends to quell disputes over alienation, the limited mechanisms for protecting citizen access to resources gives reason to reconsider the importance of direct state involvement in the customary land domain.     

Linkages between Globalisation,Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACT

This study investigates linkages between environmental degradation, globalisation and governance in 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa using data for the period 2000–2012. The Generalised Method of Moments is employed as empirical strategy. Environmental degradation is proxied by carbon dioxide emissions whereas globalisation is appreciated in terms of trade openness and net foreign direct investment inflows. Bundled and unbundled governance indicators are used, namely: political governance (consisting of political stability/no violence and “voice & accountability”), economic governance (encompassing government effectiveness and regulation quality), institutional governance (entailing corruption-control and the rule of law) and general governance (a composite measurement of political governance, economic governance and institutional governance). The following main finding is established. Trade openness modulates carbon dioxide emissions to have positive net effects on political stability, economic governance, the rule of law and general governance.     

Indigenous food sovereignty in a captured state: the Garifuna in Honduras

Abstract

This study explores the emergence of the Afro-Indigenous food sovereignty movement in the context of a captured Honduran state and unequal political economy. In contrast with national-level research that has advocated a policy of food security in the context of non-indigenous campesino movements, this work explains how food sovereignty is more appropriate regarding Garifuna Hondurans. In a political economy that has precluded other options, and given the deep cultural relation that Garifuna activists have to land and autonomy, food sovereignty provides a possibility around which Indigenous development can be animated. It encapsulates a local ‘fight’ response to repression as an alternative to northern ‘flight’, often via migrant caravans, that many Garifuna have undertaken. This study shows how food sovereignty, more than being a technical policy set, is a discursive and material node through which dispossessed and especially indigenous populations can enhance decolonial power in the contestation of entrenched hegemonic and institutionalised power in a corrupt, unequal and colonised political economy.     

Audit Committees and Accountability in Local Government: A National Survey

Abstract

Financial scandals in city governments have received increased publicity in recent years. Audit committees have been suggested as a way review and improve standards and procedures for financial accountability. Audit committees assist local government managers in overseeing and monitoring the financial accounting and auditing process. They provide a communication link between elected officials, municipal managers, and independent auditors. This study relies on national survey data to examine the prevalence, role, and composition of audit committees in cities with populations over 65,000 and the conditions affecting their use and effectiveness. Interviews and a brief case study supplement survey data to provide richer detail regarding the performance of audit committees in ensuring improved accountability.     

Sino-Ghana bilateral relations and Chinese migrants’ illegal gold mining in Ghana

ABSTRACT

This article examines the participation of some Chinese migrants in illegal gold mining (known as galamsey) in Ghana, and how the Government’s policy to address the issue created diplomatic tension between China and Ghana. Drawing on primary data from in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 250 respondents and supplementary information from archival sources and personal observation, the study found that small-scale gold mining is an area legally reserved for Ghanaian indigenes, who faced stern competition from some Chinese migrants’ miners. Their ability to mobilize resources and machinery to execute galamsey virtually displaced the indigenes from their source of livelihood and caused environmental catastrophes. The Ghana Government’s policy response to the Chinese migrants’ galamsey, which led to arrests, sentencing and deportations of some Chinese miners, angered Beijing and fractured Ghana–China diplomatic ties. But the dispute could not collapse the entrenched bilateral relations between the two nations because the calculated mutual benefit derived from the relations was thought to be higher than the Chinese galamsey issue. Policy reforms which legally integrate Chinese migrants’ miners into the small-scale mining sector would stop galamsey and strengthen Sino-Ghana relations.     

Breaking New Ground in Pagan” and “Muslim” West Africa

Nehemia Levtzion had a long and distinguished career as an interpreter of Islam in West Africa, and some of his earliest contributions have the greatest value. This article explores first, the continuing significance of Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (1968), an analysis of communities and states set in the “pagan” Middle Belt of Ghana, and second, a forgery of Arabic documents with important political implications for the jihad and state of Hamdullahi created in the Middle Delta of Mali, in “A Seventeenth Century Chronicle of Ibn al-Mukhtar” (1971).     

In Search of the Holy Grail in Public Service: A Study on the Mediating Effect of Public Service Motivation on Organizational Politics and Outcomes

ABSTRACT

There appears to be a research gap in terms of examining whether PSM will hold fast even in the midst of a politically charged work environment. This article investigates how highly motivated government employees would react to the potentially adverse effects of political perception (POP) on organizational commitment, job satisfaction and workplace stress. The findings indicated that PSM exists among the respondent municipal social workers in the Philippines and that this motivation directly translates to positive outcomes. However, PSM did not have the expected mediating effect which is a departure from the commonly held view about its buffering power and mitigating role.     

Municipality size,political efficacy and political participation: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

It is an old adage that local government is a training ground for democracy. Its human scale means that political amateurs can contribute effectively and meaningfully to the politics of a state. But in a political climate seemingly driven to consolidate local government into ever larger units, can a not so local local government still elicit an efficacious and participatory citizenry? This paper explores the effect of municipality population size on two important aspects of democratic culture: political efficacy and political participation. Via a two-part systematic review, the paper examines how extant empirical literature bears on the relationship between size and both of these aspects, hypothesising that political efficacy plays a mediating role between size and participation. The findings are unequivocal: citizens of smaller municipalities feel a greater sense of political efficacy and participate to a greater degree in local politics.     

Exploiting the common pool or looking to the future? A study of free-riding leading up to the 2007 municipal amalgamations in Denmark

ABSTRACT

Municipal amalgamations can create incentives for opportunistic behaviour. Several fairly recent studies have examined this on amalgamations in Denmark and Sweden using the so-called law of 1 over n. However, they have yielded inconclusive results and I argue that one plausible explanation is a theoretical deficiency in the law, as it does not account for how future political representation can mitigate the incentive to free-ride. I examine this using large-scale amalgamations in Denmark in 2007. This case is quite unique as the amalgamations were implemented in such a manner that they constitute a quasi-experiment, and because an extra fiscal year was added to the election period where the composition of the new councils was known with certainty, while the municipalities retained some decision-making power. The study’s findings are consistent with the argument that the incentive to free-ride depends on the decision makers’ future political stake in the new, amalgamated municipality.     

The Real Exchange Rate,Foreign Aid and Macroeconomic Transmission Mechanisms in Tanzania and Ghana

Abstract

A recent study of 36 sub-Saharan African countries found a positive impact of aid in the majority of these countries. However, for Tanzania and Ghana, two major aid recipients, aid did not seem to have been equally beneficial. This study singles out these two countries for a more detailed empirical investigation. The focus is on the effect of aid when allowing external and nominal factors to play a role in the macroeconomic transmission mechanism. We conclude that when monetary and external factors are properly accounted for, then aid has been pivotal to growth in both real GDP and investment.     

The Imbalance between Public Expectations and Resource Provision in Developing Countries: Can Inter-Assemblies Cooperation Reduce the Gap?

ABSTRACT

Local authorities have long sought for solutions to the numerous service delivery challenges arising out of increasing demands from the general public coupled with budgetary constraints. One such solution is inter-organisational cooperation which has been found as an alternative cost-effective way of providing services to the general public. Drawing on resource-dependency theory, this paper explores the possibilities and challenges of cooperation among Assemblies in Ghana by adopting a qualitative approach. The findings reveal that inter-district cooperation is still at its development stages in Ghana despite the respondents’ recognition that it has the potential to address most of the problems faced by District Assemblies in Ghana.     

Patronage,politics and performance: radio call-in programmes and the myth of accountability

The role of media in promoting political accountability and citizen participation is a central issue in governance debates. Drawing on research into the interactions between radio station owners, journalists, audiences and public authorities during Somali radio call-in programmes we argue that these programmes do not simply offer a new platform for citizens to challenge those who are governing but that they are also spaces where existing power structures reproduce themselves in new forms. We identify the ways the programmes are structured and the different motivations the audience has for participation. Three types of programmes are identified and their relationships with patronage, politics, and performance are examined. Rather than focusing on normative assumptions about the media as a tool of accountability, the article emphasises the importance of understanding radio programmes in their social and political environment, including the overlapping relationships between on-air and off-air networks.     

Public administrators in interactive democracy: a multi-paradigmatic approach

ABSTRACT

Currently, interactive forms of democracy that bring local politicians into dialogue and collaboration with relevant and affected citizens are mushrooming. While some research has investigated how interactive democracy affects citizens and politicians, we know little about what interactive democracy means for public administrators. This article presents the results of a case study of role perceptions and coping strategies among public administrators assisting a new type of interactive political committee in two Nordic municipalities. Guided by a multi-paradigmatic conceptual framework featuring public administrators’ roles and coping strategies in interactive governance, the study shows that individual public administrators identify with different administrative roles, and that political and administrative leadership sentiments condition their choice of coping strategies. Moreover, the coping strategy that public administrators select to handle intra- and inter-paradigmatic role dilemmas can have dire consequences for the interplay between interactive democracy and local representative government.