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| 1 |
ID:
135279
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article I explore the making of national culture through bureaucratic routines in the Centre for National Culture in Wa, North-Western Ghana. I focus on an aspect of bureaucracy that is usually left aside: the productivity and creativity of bureaucratic routines. State, nation and culture are not fixed entities, but have to be constantly produced through processes of negotiation and meaning-making and through the continual reproduction of their boundaries and the categories that determine what is to be promoted or preserved. Bureaucratic routines and administrative processes are analysed as practices objectifying and nationalising culture and naturalising the boundaries and categories created through the cultural officers' practices.
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| 2 |
ID:
137007
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines calls for the introduction of partisan politics into the District Assemblies system, which is the core institution in Ghana’s democratic decentralization program. I argue that in spite of constitutional provisions and an enabling legislation on the need for a ‘politically neutral’ District Assemblies system, this has not been the case, ironically partly due to the composition of the membership of the Assemblies as provided for in the 1992 Constitution and the unnecessary interferences by governments. This situation, the article notes, has undermined the effectiveness of the District Assemblies system. The article concludes by recommending certain measures that must be put in place if the situation is to be arrested and ensure the attainment of the goals of the District Assemblies system.
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| 3 |
ID:
134244
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| Summary/Abstract |
The creation of an army loyal to the state is one of the most important institutional tasks of post-colonial leaders. But how do novice political leaders develop the capacity to subordinate the armed forces to the authority of state institutions? This essay explains alternative methods of formulating post-colonial civil–military relations and explains why four states – India, Pakistan, Ghana, and Tanzania – took such different routes of institutional development. I make two arguments. Firstly, building armed forces that willingly acquiesce to state authority is always a critical issue of regime change – whether to democracy or some other form of government – though it is more difficult to accomplish in some contexts than others. Secondly, the political and socioeconomic contexts in which armies must be built are very different and thus pose dissimilar challenges and tasks to those crafting new armies and civil–military relations. I will assess the power of several variables to explain the disparate outcomes of the four cases: the quality of political leadership and leaders’ approach to the armed forces, the strength of political institutions, ethno-religious and regional policies, civilian control mechanisms, military–societal relations, and foreign influence.
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| 4 |
ID:
134236
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| Summary/Abstract |
The North American scholarship on gated housing communities posits the desire for security as the main driver for gating, but does this hold true for less wealthy countries? To address this question, this study examines evidence of why people live behind gates in Malaysia and Ghana and investigates the socio-economic implications of gating. It uses a critical institutional framework anchored on Foucault’s interpretation of ‘panopticon’ and Runciman’s theory of relative deprivation, while drawing empirical evidence from surveys and emic experiences. It finds that, while security is an important reason, it is the provision of quality housing services that is reported as the single most important reason for living behind gates. ‘Quality service’ is, however, shorthand for a preference for privileged status. Further, the paper reveals that it is more helpful to see the binary between quality and security as constituting a flexible continuum of motives. Inhabitants of gated housing communities may be primarily motivated by quality service or prestige. Yet, as they set themselves up against the rest of society by enclosing themselves in walls of affluence, they begin to feel a need for greater security. This feeling of insecurity is heightened as people outside the gates feel relatively deprived. Thus, the desire for security becomes illusory and attainment of privilege, pyrrhic, while the harsh socio-economic conditions for a large stratum of the urban population living outside the gates persist and are sometimes worsened.
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| 5 |
ID:
135958
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| Summary/Abstract |
When elites mobilize supporters according to different cleavages, or when individuals realign themselves along new identity lines, do their political preferences change? Scholars have focused predominantly on the size of potential coalitions that leaders construct, to the exclusion of other changes that might occur when one or another identity type is made salient. In this article, I argue that changes in the salience of ethnicity and religion in Africa are associated with variation in policy preferences at the individual level. I test this claim empirically using data from a framing experiment in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. By randomly assigning participants to either a religious or an ethno-linguistic context, I show that group members primed to ethnicity prioritize club goods, the access to which is a function of where they live. Otherwise identical individuals primed to religion prioritize behavioral policies and moral probity. These findings are explained by the geographic boundedness of ethnic groups and the geographic expansiveness of (world) religions in the study area.
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| 6 |
ID:
136460
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| Summary/Abstract |
Revisiting the events leading to the collapse of Third World summitry in 1965, this article proposes that the rise and fall of Third World unity efforts in the years 1955–65 originated from the unsuccessful attempt by industrialised Afro-Asian (aa) countries to turn unindustrialised aa states into their export markets. As a case study, this article explores Egypt’s economic foreign policy towards other aa countries and its activity within the aa and the Non-aligned movements, and compares Egyptian strategy in this field with that of China and Ghana.
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| 7 |
ID:
134614
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| Summary/Abstract |
Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have gradually localized their workforce since they began operating in Ghana in the 1980s. Examining their workforce localization patterns, the Chinese SOEs in Ghana appear to be diverse in their business practices and highly autonomous from the Chinese state. Our hypothesis on the substantial autonomy of Chinese SOE overseas subsidiaries, which is consequent to the lack of management control from the Chinese central authority since the Chinese economic reform, contrasts the dominant assumption in the China–Africa debate, in which Chinese SOEs are depicted as closely linked to the Chinese state and/or as the arms of the new Chinese policy in Africa. The workforce localization process of Chinese SOEs in Ghana is largely determined by factors like profit maximization objective, market competition and political pressure. The localization experience is similar to those of Western companies in Africa where complete workforce localization takes a long time to achieve.
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| 8 |
ID:
137008
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| Summary/Abstract |
Civil Society and many youth activists were elated when the youth, those aged between 21 and 40 years, were given prominence in Ghana’s parliament after the 2012 elections. Indeed, as many as 44 young people were elected during Ghana’s 2012 Parliamentary Elections. Prior to this, the number of young people in Ghana’s parliament was negligible. In view of the demographic advantage of the youth and their invaluable contributions to Ghana’s political history, there have been incessant calls for their representation and an eventual return to the days of the 1950s when politics was dominated by the youth. The outcome of the 2012 Parliamentary Elections was therefore hailed as unprecedented and described by many as a giant step towards youth representation in national decision making. However, a survey of all the young parliamentarians and some 4400 young people carefully selected through purposive sampling provides the basis for this paper’s thesis that the growth in the number of young people in Ghana’s parliament does not necessarily guarantee youth representation in national decision making; rather, it promotes tokenism, exclusivity and co-optation of the youth into decision-making structures of state. The study makes practical recommendations to create a relationship between youth in Ghana’s parliament and youth representation.
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