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Comparative Public Demand and Expectation Patterns: The Ghana Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Donald Rothchild
Donald Rothchild*
Affiliation:
University of California at Davis
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Extract

It is thus inaccurate to assume that rural dwellers have no political kick. They have much less than more elite groups in towns. … But they have sufficient kick to ensure for most of the time that governments must at least appear to give rural development a high even the highest priority. (Elliott, 1975: 24-25).

The link between resource scarcity and group demands is apparent to many observers. Thus, David Easton (1957: 387) remarks: “The reason why a political system emerges in a society at all … is that demands are being made by persons or groups in the society that cannot all be fully satisfied. In all societies one fact dominates political life: scarcity prevails with regard to most of the valued things.” In modern Ghana, not only are desired resources in short supply generally, but the inherited subregional inequalities add a further dimension to collective demands for the allocation of goods and services by central government authorities. Longstanding subregional inequalities in amenities and services heighten and complicate competition over scarce resources. The resulting demands on the part of the relatively disadvantaged subregions therefore emerge as a dynamic aspect in the process of determining public policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 1979 , pp. 127 - 147
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

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