Ghana: From fragility to resilience? Understanding the formation of a new political settlement from a critical political economy perspective Item Type Thesis Authors Ruppel, Julia Franziska Rights <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by- nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. Download date 28/09/2021 19:08:59 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10454/15062 University of Bradford eThesis This thesis is hosted in Bradford Scholars – The University of Bradford Open Access repository. Visit the repository for full metadata or to contact the repository team © University of Bradford. This work is licenced for reuse under a Creative Commons Licence. GHANA: FROM FRAGILITY TO RESILIENCE? J.F. RUPPEL PHD 2015 Ghana: From fragility to resilience? Understanding the formation of a new political settlement from a critical political economy perspective Julia Franziska RUPPEL Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Bradford 2015 GHANA: FROM FRAGILITY TO RESILIENCE? UNDERSTANDING THE FORMATION OF A NEW POLITICAL SETTLEMENT FROM A CRITICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY PERSPECTIVE Julia Franziska RUPPEL ABSTRACT Keywords: Critical political economy; electoral politics; Ghana; political settle- ment; power relations; social change; statebuilding and state formation During the late 1970s Ghana was described as a collapsed and failed state. In contrast, today it is hailed internationally as beacon of democracy and stability in West Africa. In light of Ghana’s drastic image change from a fragile and even collapsed polity to a resilient state, this thesis contributes to the statebuilding debate by analysing the social change that occurred. Grounded in a critical theory approach the thesis applies a political settlement analysis to explore how power is distributed and changed over time between contending social groups; exploring the extent to which this is embedded in formal and informal institutional arrangements. Ghana’s 2012 elections serve as an empirical basis and lens to observe the country’s current settlement. This approach enables a fine grained within-case comparison with Ghana’s collapsed post-independent settlement. The analysis illustrates that while there has been no transformation of the Ghanaian state, however, continuous incremental structural change has occurred within it, as demonstrated by a structurally altered constellation of power. While internationally propagated (neo-)liberal economic and political reforms had a vital impact on the reconstruction process of state-society relations, Ghana’s labelling as “success story” evokes the distorted idea of a resilient liberal state. The sustainability of Ghana’s current settlement characterised by electoral competitive clientelism depends on a continued inflow of foreign capi- tal. So far the mutually beneficial interest of portraying Ghana as a resilient state by its elites and donors ensures the flow of needed financial assistance to preserve the settlement. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), as well as the European Commission with its Marie Curie Pre-doctoral Fellowship programme, for their financial support. Together these awards enabled me to carry out the research for my thesis. I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr David Harris, who took me on blindly as a PhD student half way through the process. Without his guidance, invalua- ble feedback and constant sympathetic ear and support, the thesis would not have been completed. Thank you so much David for being such an outstanding supervisor. I could have sincerely not been any luckier. I am also indebted to Professor Nana Poku for starting me out on my PhD. His endless patience and perpetual belief in in me as well as general idea for my project provided a solid basis for embarking my doctoral journey. Furthermore, I would like to thank Professor Arnim Langer for kindly hosting me at the Centre for Research on Peace and Development (CRPD) at the KU Leuven during parts of my research. A massive thank you as well to my former colleagues at CRPD in Leuven and and current ones at JEFCAS/Peace Studies at Bradford. The Peace Studies PhD community in Bradford is something so rare and unique existing independ- ent of, and dispite institutional quarrels. This community and its members have made the process of writing this thesis with all its accompanying challenges an experience I would have under no account wanted to have missed. In this con- text I am in particular grateful to Sarah Njeri and Pamela Nzabampema. Our endless fruitful discussions about African politics have shaped my perception and academic thinking lastingly which is reflected in this work. Moreover, your friendship and care have brought me to the longed for finishing line. A very warm thank you must go to Michele Mozley who has been the central and con- stant pillar of our PhD programme. Thank you Michele for always having been there to lean on when needed throughout this sometimes rocky journey. I also would like to thank the many Ghanaians who have hosted me in Accra and answered patiently my endless questions about Ghanaian politics and so- ii ciety: especially, Sarah, Daniel and their twins Manuella and Emanuella; Mawu- tor Alifo and Max Kolbe Domapielle. Of course I cannot thank enough my Bradford-family: Laura O’Connor, Nadia Fer- rer-Sanz and Julia Smith. Thank you for always being there for me and having shared all my ups and downs of life over the last few years. A special thanks as well to Torie Cochrane, Gwyneth Sutherlin, Manuel Amarilla Mena, Mark O’Shea, Ronak Olfati, Ulli Immler, Niall Hynes and everybody at Cecil who provided me with a lovely and supportive home over the last few years and kept me – more or less – sane throughout the writing up process. Der gröβte Dank geht an meine Familie: meine Oma, meine Tanten und Onkel im Saarland, aber vor allem an meine Eltern, denen ich diese Arbeit widme. Ihr habt mich bei jedem meiner bisherigen Abenteur, wo auch immer sie mich hingeführt haben, in jeder erdenklichen Weise unterstützt. Ohne euch wäre dies alles nicht möglich gewesen. DANKE! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .......................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ ii Table of Contents ........................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................ vii List of Tables .................................................................................................. ix Abbreviations ................................................................................................. xi I. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 1 II. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK, CONTEXTUALIZATION AND METHOD- OLOGICAL APPROACH ........................................................................ 7 2.1 Theoretical framework ..................................................................... 7 2.1.1 Engaging Gramsci in the field of statebuilding .................... 7 2.1.2 Gramsci: On forms of states, power and social transformation ..................................................................... 10 2.1.3 A political settlement approach – a derivation from Gramsci’s thought ................................................................ 16 2.2 Contextualization: African states’ historical trajectories ................... 24 2.2.1 Structures and institutions .................................................. 25 2.2.2 Norms and ideas ................................................................ 28 2.2.3 Actors ................................................................................. 34 2.3 Methodological approach ................................................................. 37 2.3.1 Analysing social change in Ghana through a political settle- ment framework .................................................................. 37 2.3.2 What type of data has been used for the analysis and which techniques have been applied to gather it? ........................ 40 2.3.3 Data access and documentation of collected primary data .... 42 2.3.4 Data analysis ...................................................................... 44 2.3.5 Reasoning for applied approaches and their limitations ..... 45 2.3.6 Reflections on the process of data collection and analysis .... 47 2.4 Chapter summary ............................................................................. 49 III. GHANAIAN POLITICAL SETTLEMENTS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ... 50 3.1 Social dynamics and historical roots of elite conflict ......................... 50 3.1.1 Impact of colonialism ........................................................... 51 3.1.2 Manifestation of societal factions ......................................... 53 3.1.3 National power struggle and flaring up of regional-ethnic factions ............................................................................... 55 iv 3.2 Ghana’s post-independent settlement ............................................