Ghanaian Politics and Political Communication Africa: Past, Present, & Prospects Series Editors: Toyin Falola (University of Texas at Austin) and Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso (Babcock University) This series collates and curates studies of Africa in its multivalent local, regional, and global contexts. It aims fundamentally to capture in one series historical, contemporary, and multidisciplinary studies that analyze the dynamics of the African predicament from deeply theoretical perspectives while marshalling empirical data to describe, explain, and predict trends in continuities and change in Africa and in African studies. The books published in this series represent the multiplicity of voices, local, and global in relation to African futures. It not only represents diversity but also provides a platform for convergence of outstanding research that will enliven debates about the future of Africa while also advancing theory and informing policymaking. Preference is given to studies that deliberately link the past with the present and advance knowledge about various African nations by extending the range, breadth, depth, types, and sources of data and information existing and emerging about these countries. The platform created proceeds from the assumption that there is no singular “African experience,” nor is it possible to, in any way, homogenize the identities, histories, spaces, and lives of African people. Titles in the Series Ghanaian Politics and Political Communication. Edited by Samuel Gyasi Obeng and Emmanuel Debrah. Ghanaian Politics and Political Communication Edited by Samuel Gyasi Obeng Emmanuel Debrah London • New York Published by Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and London (UK) www.rowman.com Copyright © 2019 by Samuel Gyasi Obeng and Emmanuel Debrah All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: HB 978-1-78661-369-1 ISBN: ebook 978-1-78661-370-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Obeng, Samuel Gyasi, editor. | Debrah, Emmanuel, editor. Title: Ghanaian politics and political communication / edited by Samuel Gyasi Obeng, Emmanuel Debrah. Description: New York : Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. | Series: Africa: past, present & prospects | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019014327 (print) | LCCN 2019017507 (ebook) | ISBN 9781786613707 (elec- tronic) | ISBN 9781786613691 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Ghana—Politics and government—2001– | Elections—-Ghana—History—21st century. | Communication in politics—Ghana. | Politics, Practical—Ghana. Classification: LCC JQ3036 (ebook) | LCC JQ3036 .G427 2019 (print) | DDC 324.709667—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014327 TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Contents Preface vii Prologue ix 1 Introduction 1 Samuel Obeng and Emmanuel Debrah 2 Ghana’s Political Environment and the 2016 General Election 15 Emmanuel Debrah 3 Election Campaign in Ghana’s 2016 National Elections 31 Seidu Alidu 4 Communicating with the Electorate in the 2016 Elections: Did the Political Parties and Their Candidates Lean on the Issues? 41 Richard Asante 5 (Mis)coordination: Why Would Ghanaian Political Actors and Political Parties Strategically Encourage Split-Ticket Voting? 59 Samuel Darkwa 6 Are Members of Parliament (MPs) in Ghana Responsive to Their Constituents in Policy Making?: Evidence from the National Health Insurance Scheme 99 Hassan Wahab 7 When Government Is Unaware It Is Incommunicado 115 Margaret I. Amoakohene and Kwasi Ansu-Kyeremeh 8 Pragmatic Analysis of First-Person Pronoun Deixes in President Nana Akuffo-Addo’s 2018 State of the Nation Address (SONA) 137 Kofi Agyekum v vi Contents 9 Discursive Construction of the Representative Claim in UK and Ghanaian Parliamentary Discourse 159 Kwabena Sarfo Sarfo-Kantankah 10 How Much Communication Is in Ghanaian Presidents’ State of the Nation Addresses? 183 Margaret I. Amoakohene 11 Power, Domination, and Manipulation in Students’ Parliamentary Discourse in a Ghanaian University 209 Dora F. Edu-Buandoh and Nancy Boahemaa Nkansah 12 The Role of Music in Ghanaian Political Communication 233 Kofi Agyekum, Joshua Alfred Amuah, and Hilarius Mawutor Wuaku 13 President Akufo-Addo’s Address to the Nation on the US- Ghana Military Cooperation Agreement: A Political Communicative Functional and Framing Analytic Approach 257 Etse Sikanku, Frank Kofi Boadi, Halisa Aziz, and Nana Kwame Osei Fordjour 14 Language and Liberty in the Ghanaian Political Ecology: An Overview 281 Samuel Obeng Index 297 Preface This book brings together scholars in the social sciences (especially political science and history), media studies (particularly mass communication and journalism), discourse analysis, text grammar, folklore, performing arts, and linguistics to think about, synthesize, and analyze issues related to democrat- ization and policy in an African context as elucidated and explicated via elections and election campaigns. Other issues of political content, context, cotext, and intertext discussed by the contributors to this volume include ways political actors (especially presidents or members of Parliament) and the media speak about important policy issues such as health care, infrastruc- ture, education, finance, and agriculture in the context of a sessional address to Parliament or political campaigning and the discursive strategies em- ployed to communicatively deliver and interactionally manage such policy issues. Additional major areas of coverage include how political ecology affects democratization (especially general elections), issues that political parties and their actors lean on and highlight during elections, and split-ticket voting (especially what causes it to happen and its impact on who gets elected and the consequent impact on party unity or disintegration). On political communication, important areas of coverage include how much communication is in political actors’ speeches and the extent to which governments and political actors actually stay in communication with the electorate and how medium (written and spoken, especially the use of a foreign tongue) can render communication useless and ineffectual and cause communication breakdown. Pragma-linguistic issues related to language, power, ideology, and representation are also discussed, as are issues deemed politically nerve-wracking and potentially dangerous given their ability to entrap political actors and cause the citizenry to either lose confidence in them (the political actors) or even call for their resignation. Music has always vii viii Preface been part and parcel of African traditional political communication, and it is refreshing to see some of the contributors to this volume discuss the role of music in contemporary African political communication in relation to topics such as patriotism, mobilization, and stance-taking. There is no doubt that politics, philosophy, and language are entwined on matters relating to liberty given how powerful actors often intrude the liberty of non-powerful actors thereby preventing them from active communicative engagement in the communal and state discourse ecologies; it is therefore refreshing that the entwining of language and liberty in an African political ecology is given some elucidation and explication in this book. The contributors have used specific African (Ghanaian) political, histori- cal, and sociocultural crosscurrents to shed light on themes that run through the Ghanaian political ecology in order to help readers follow through the logic of their arguments; this helps to prevent their analysis from being insulated from any rigorous public inspection and/or criticism. Analytical assertions and claims are fully supported by verifiable data gathered from authentic sources. All the contributors have firsthand knowledge of the polit- ical ecology in which they operate, and they write about it in a manner that gives further authenticity and credence to the description and elucidation of their analytical assertions. It would have been impossible to put this volume together without the scholars and media professionals (contributors) agreeing not only to contrib- ute chapters to this volume but to share their research and professional expe- rience with us. Their selflessness and professionalism are truly appreciated. Toyin Falola, a doyen of African history, Africanity, and African intellec- tualism, deserves our sincere thanks. His painstaking editing of the volume and his encouragement to one and all are highly treasured. We are also grateful to Dr. Samson Lotven for copyediting the chapters for grammar, content, and cohesion. Prologue This polity, our polity, Has a history of holding peaceful democratic elections. But our Strength and our Peace Are rooted in the hearts of respected