Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana

Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana PDF Author: Barry Driscoll
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0896805131
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
How have the waves of democracy and decentralization that swept the developing world in recent decades affected states—among the most important drivers of poverty and prosperity—at national and local levels in Ghana and beyond? State actors beneath the national level—what Barry Driscoll calls the local state—have considerable responsibility for carrying out state functions, but they are also forced to compete for these local state offices. How does a local state actually work in poor twentieth-century countries? This book offers a descriptive account, as well as a causal explanation, of how political competition affects the local state in Ghana. Driscoll shows how closely fought elections drive local state institutions to provide patronage. The source of these demands for patronage comes not from rent-seeking bureaucrats or landed elites but from the government’s own party volunteers. Driscoll explains how electoral competition affects how local state actors are insulated from such patronage demands. Moreover, these highly competitive, patronage-providing local governments actually have relatively better-qualified senior civil servants at their disposal. Driscoll makes sense of this paradox by introducing the logic of building administrative capacity in order to provide patronage. He then abstracts from the case of Ghana to generalize about how the effect of political competition is shaped by the locally salient variety of clientelism, which in turn is conditioned by the strength of the party system. The book draws on fourteen months of fieldwork in six of Ghana’s districts, far from the nation’s capital city. Ethnographic and interview data come from time spent with market traders, tax collectors, politicians, and other figures in local state offices. Quantitative data come from a survey covering almost all local governments. The result is a detailed account of Ghana’s local state power dynamics that has relevant implications for states across the developing world.

Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana

Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana PDF Author: Barry Driscoll
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0896805131
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Get Book Here

Book Description
How have the waves of democracy and decentralization that swept the developing world in recent decades affected states—among the most important drivers of poverty and prosperity—at national and local levels in Ghana and beyond? State actors beneath the national level—what Barry Driscoll calls the local state—have considerable responsibility for carrying out state functions, but they are also forced to compete for these local state offices. How does a local state actually work in poor twentieth-century countries? This book offers a descriptive account, as well as a causal explanation, of how political competition affects the local state in Ghana. Driscoll shows how closely fought elections drive local state institutions to provide patronage. The source of these demands for patronage comes not from rent-seeking bureaucrats or landed elites but from the government’s own party volunteers. Driscoll explains how electoral competition affects how local state actors are insulated from such patronage demands. Moreover, these highly competitive, patronage-providing local governments actually have relatively better-qualified senior civil servants at their disposal. Driscoll makes sense of this paradox by introducing the logic of building administrative capacity in order to provide patronage. He then abstracts from the case of Ghana to generalize about how the effect of political competition is shaped by the locally salient variety of clientelism, which in turn is conditioned by the strength of the party system. The book draws on fourteen months of fieldwork in six of Ghana’s districts, far from the nation’s capital city. Ethnographic and interview data come from time spent with market traders, tax collectors, politicians, and other figures in local state offices. Quantitative data come from a survey covering almost all local governments. The result is a detailed account of Ghana’s local state power dynamics that has relevant implications for states across the developing world.

The Perverse Effects of Political Competition

The Perverse Effects of Political Competition PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Waves of decentralization that have swept the developing world have come with waves of scholar- ship documenting disappointing outcomes in local service provision. Some have identified robust electoral competition as a means by which clientelistic local government can be improved. Using original data from a survey of local government officials in Ghana, I show that where elections are most competitive, local governments over-provide patronage and under-provide public services. My identification strategy exploits plausibly exogenous variation in political competition arising from historical migration of ethnic blocs with distinct political allegiances. I argue that this behavior is driven by the patronage-seeking behavior of volunteers on whom the political parties rely to mobilize voters. The leverage of these volunteers is elevated because voters are highly immobile between the major parties, and especially so in areas where elections are closely fought.

Local Government and Political Change in Northern Ghana

Local Government and Political Change in Northern Ghana PDF Author: Yakubu Saaka
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ghana
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description


Uses and Abuses of Political Power

Uses and Abuses of Political Power PDF Author: Maxwell Owusu
Publisher: Ghana University Press
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The first edition of this book, published in 1970, was widely acclaimed as the best account of grassroots politics to have emerged from Africa. One of its unique features is the extent to which the author has effectively integrated historical and anthropological issues into a political frame. The book is divided into three parts: the first looks retrospectively at the first edition and its relevance to Ghana's past, present and future; the second part considers the importance of comparative political studies to the development and fostering of the growth of an informed and knowledgeable political public and opinion leadership, covering history, culture and politics; and the third part presents an intellectual overview of Ghanaian political change, from Nkrumah to the peaceful transfer of power from the National Democratic Congress government to the New Patriotic Party at the start of the new millennium. Maxwell Owusu is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University Michigan. Educated at the London School of Economics, Harvard University, and the University of Chicago, he has taught at the University of Ghana, Legon. He was a consulting member of the Constitutional Experts Committee which drafted the 1992 constitution proposals. He is the author of numerous scholarly publications, the recipient of a US Institute of Peace Grant, and on the board of the International Union of Anthropoligical and Ethnological Sciences. Praise for the first edition: ".the best available account of grassroots politics to have emerged from Africa." Political Science Quarterly ".this fine and vivic piece of scholarship comes to blow away fhe cobwebs from Ghanaian political studies." American Political Science Review "The author demonstrates an enviable ability to present his diverse material in a readily comprehensive framework and handles his written sources as deftly as his own participant observation." American Journal of Sociology

Economies After Colonialism

Economies After Colonialism PDF Author: Lindsay Whitfield
Publisher:
ISBN: 110842614X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Mapping Ghana's struggle to transform its economy after independence, this original interpretation highlights the economic difficulties associated with the political legacies of colonialism.

Local Government Under Political Integration

Local Government Under Political Integration PDF Author: Kwabena Asare Owusu-Ansah
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Ghana
Languages : en
Pages : 1052

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Book Description


International Studies

International Studies PDF Author: Scott Straus
Publisher: CQ Press
ISBN: 1544344279
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
The challenge of teaching international studies is to help students think coherently about the multiple causes and effects of global problems. In International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions, award-winning scholars Scott Straus and Barry Driscoll give students a clear framework that pinpoints how key factors—forces, interactions, and tensions—contribute to world events, with both global and local consequences. The authors first show students how to look for common patterns in global issues by introducing four world-shaping forces: global markets, shifting centers of power, information and communications technologies, and global governance. They systematically trace how these forces prompt interactions among world actors and thus give rise to a set of tensions that spur key challenges. The framework enables students to ask and answer for themselves—Who is interacting? Where did such interactions develop? What policies or institutions govern them? Why are they getting certain global and local reactions? Students then apply the framework to the global problems that matter most to them: human rights abuses, economic inequality, terrorism, forced migration, pandemics and global health responses, climate change, food security, and more. International Studies raises the bar for the Introduction to IS course, moving beyond interdisciplinary, and into the realm of critical analysis to increase student relevancy and motivation. Give your students the SAGE edge! SAGE edge offers a robust online environment featuring an impressive array of free tools and resources for review, study, and further exploration, keeping both instructors and students on the cutting edge of teaching and learning. Learn more at edge.sagepub.com/straus1e. Bundle and Save! Your students only pay $5 for The CQ Press Career Guide for Global Politics Students when you bundle it with the print version of International Studies. Use Bundle ISBN: 978-1-5443-5204-6

Changing Natural Resource Regimes in Northern Ghana

Changing Natural Resource Regimes in Northern Ghana PDF Author: Wolfram Laube
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 3825806413
Category : Ghana
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
Colonial and national interventions have considerably changed the natural resource regimes regarding water and land in Northern Ghana. However, this change has not led to the establishment of new institutions, but different actors - farmers, bureaucrats, earthpriests, chiefs, and politicians - are continuously engaged in negotiation process over (natural) resources. While the institutional and distributional outcomes of these negotiation processes remain inconclusive they have led to a precarious local power balance, in which different actors rely on different institutions and changing political alliances to pursue their interests.

An Anatomy Of Ghanaian Politics

An Anatomy Of Ghanaian Politics PDF Author: Naomi Chazan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429725124
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
The paths of African states have diverged markedly since the termination of colonial rule. Nevertheless, Ghana, the first African state to achieve independence, epitomizes both the political gyrations and the overall stagnation common to many other countries on the continent. This work concentrates on the 1969–1982 period in Ghana, focusing on two interrelated facets of African politics: the decline of state power and authority, and adjustments to political recession. The author traces the dual patterns of diminution of the state and the adaptation of autonomous coping mechanisms in the separate spheres of political leadership, political structures and institutions, ideology, and political economy. The dynamic of state-society interactions is then treated in terms of the rhythm of dissent, conflict, and disengagement. Dr. Chazan provides a comprehensive study of Ghanaian politics from the 1970s to the present. By systematically analyzing the process of political decline and regeneration, she highlights similar processes apparent elsewhere in Africa. The stress on the subtleties and direction of political change has important implications for policymakers and policy analysts alike.

Patrons, Clients, and Empire

Patrons, Clients, and Empire PDF Author: Colin Newbury
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191555258
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
Patrons, Clients, and Empire challenges the stereotypes of despotic imperial power in Asian, African, and Pacific colonies by analysing the relationship between rulers and rulers on both sides of the imperial equation. It seeks an answer to the question: how were European officials able to govern so many societies for so long? Rejecting the usual explanations of 'collaboration' and indirect rule', this study looks to pre-imperial structures in the indigenous hierarchies which supplied patrimonial models of chieftaincy for territorial government. For nawabs, chiefs, emirs, sultans, and their officials and followers there were dynastic and economic advantages in accepting the terms of European over-rule, as well as the threat of deposition. For European officials, few in numbers and with limited military and financial resources, there were ready-made systems of local government that could be co-opted, reformed, or left relatively untouched. Both sides played politics as patrons and clients within a dual system of administration based on a mixture of force and self-interest. Surveying a wide variety of cases and employing a patron-client model, this study embraces pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial politics in new states. It covers the chronology of early European dependency on local rulers; the reasons for reversal of status among chiefs and administrators; the longer period of political bargaining over access to local resources in terms of land, labour, and taxes; and the ultimate fate of indigenous rulers in the period of party politics leading to independence.