Another Step Forward for Ghana

Gyimah‐Boadi, E.

doi:10.1353/jod.0.0065

Cited by 147 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The president and the ruling party face few obstacles to abuse incumbency for personal as well as partisan electoral gain. At the same time, there is low transparency in the management of public assets, such as forests, mines, and state enterprises, and the executive rarely reacts as it should to poorly performing boards of state and parastatal organizations (Ayee 2007;Gyimah-Boadi 2009). …”

Section: Political Economy Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These informal party structures combined with the president's formal authority have ensured that the DAs operate with direct influence from 18 the central government. In addition, local party leaders are heavily involved in the awarding of contracts at the district level, and several studies have found that local development suffers from awarding service-delivery contracts to party chairs and their cronies (Ayee 2007(Ayee , 2009a(Ayee , 2009bGyimah-Boadi 2009). This weakens the local institutions and creates direct lines of patronage from the center to the most remote provinces via executive control of appointments, contracts, and resources (Ayee 2008a).…”

Section: Party Loyalty and Central Control On District Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…A possible explanation could be that the attorney general is also a member of the executive as the minister of justice and might prefer not to prosecute party colleagues who have violated the law. This potential conflict of interest has led to calls for a separation of the two public offices (Ayee 2009a;Gyimah-Boadi 2009;Ninsin 2008;Saffu 2007a). …”

Section: F Risk Of Political Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Political Economy of the Mining Sector in Ghana

Ayee¹,

Søreide²,

Shukla³

et al. 2011

Policy Research Working Papers

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Section: Political Economy Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Party Loyalty and Central Control On District Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: F Risk Of Political Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Political Economy of the Mining Sector in Ghana

Ayee¹,

Søreide²,

Shukla³

et al. 2011

Policy Research Working Papers

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“…Although, it is impossible to be certain that Ghana's democracy will continue to thrive in absentia of an external environment favorable to democracy, there are several signs in Ghana's current political environment that signify that its democracy has endogenized in this respect. For example, several observers have noted that civil society organizations in Ghana have grown in numbers and influence, and especially so in organizing interests around elections and for advocacy of various policy reforms (Gyimah-boadi 2009). Additionally, democracy in Ghana not only enjoys overwhelming public support, as data from four rounds of Afrobarometer surveys suggest, (Abdulai and Crawford 2010) but the Ghanaian public demonstrates a high degree of democratic engagement.…”

Section: Signs Of Endogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, democracy in Ghana not only enjoys overwhelming public support, as data from four rounds of Afrobarometer surveys suggest, (Abdulai and Crawford 2010) but the Ghanaian public demonstrates a high degree of democratic engagement. Voter turnout since Ghana's second election has been above 70% (Gyimah-boadi 2009;Abdulai and Crawford 2010). …”

Section: Signs Of Endogenizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Africa's Unresponsive Democratization: the Relationship between Regime Type and the Quality of Life in Africa

Peiffer¹

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Africa's Unresponsive Democratization: the Relationship between Regime Type and the Quality of Life in Africa by Caryn Peiffer Claremont Graduate University: 2012Scholars and policy makers alike argue that leaders of democracies should find it in their interest to provide high levels of social services due to a fear of being voted out of office. Yet, I find that Africa's newer democracies provide levels of social services strikingly similar to what the continent's existing non-democracies supply. This dissertation seeks to explain why this is the case.I start by exploring the determinants of Africa's most recent wave of democratization, and find that much of Africa's 1990s democratic wave can be attributed to changes in foreign circumstances rather than from pressures from domestic democratic movements. I argue democratization has become disassociated with social services on the continent because of this exogenous nature of political liberalization. Rather than institutionalizing electoral incentives to provide social services, leadership of exogenously derived democracies become principally accountable to the foreign actors for whom political change was meant to appease. However, foreign actors are effectively unable and unwilling to demand political reforms that will institutionalize a more responsive democracy. This dynamic threatens any electoral incentive a ruling party might have to produce higher levels of social services. I test this argument quantitatively and find support for the notion that exogeneity of political change has dampened the impact that democratization has had on social service delivery in Africa.Additionally, through in-country, qualitative fieldwork I examine how citizens demand social services and how the government responds to such demands in Zambia, a country whose democratization was heavily influenced by foreign pressure. There, I found that while there were important initial strides made by Zambia's post-transition government to institutionalize a higher level of responsiveness in social services, later erosions in Zambia's checks and balances undermined these gains. Finally, using Afrobarometer's cross-national survey data, I explore what impact foreign influenced democratization has on citizens' attachment to and satisfaction with democracy. I find that exogenously derived democratization has a small negative impact on people's attachment to democracy and satisfaction with the way democracy works in their country. I conclude by discussing some of the policy implications of these findings.v Acknowledgements

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Institutional Trust and Political Participation in Africa

Kipo-Sunyehzi

2022

Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance

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Another Step Forward for Ghana

Abstract: Ghana held its fourth successful elections in late 2008 and subsequently witnessed the peaceful handover of power from ruling party to opposition. The country's leaders must now reform its institutions of governance.

Cited by 147 publications

References 6 publications

Political Economy of the Mining Sector in Ghana

Political Economy of the Mining Sector in Ghana

Africa's Unresponsive Democratization: the Relationship between Regime Type and the Quality of Life in Africa

Institutional Trust and Political Participation in Africa

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