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On the Politics of Nationalism and Social Change in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

There has been a high level of debate over critical features of politics in Ghana during the Nkrumah period, for example, on the role of ethnicity, the mass party, authoritarian rule, and strategies of economic development. This review of studies of Ghanaian politics focuses on the treatment devoted to only a few areas of political inquiry: (1) the nature of the socio-economic, political, and territorial framework within which political action occurred; (2) the kinds of political structures which developed in Ghana, with primary attention to parties and the party—state relationship but also to certain state structures—for example, the civil service and national assembly; and (3) the types of political demands which were made upon the system, how they entered the system, the capability of the system in terms of these demands, and the degrees of legitimacy and institutionalisation of political roles, structures, or processes involved.

Type
Review Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1969

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References

Page 107 note 1 This includes Apter's original work, The Gold Coast in Transition (Princeton, 1955),Google Scholar plus a new chapter which treats changes primarily during 1960–5. See also his chapter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman, James S. and Rosberg, Carl G. (eds.), Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa (Berkeley, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 107 note 2 Austin's richly descriptive book is strongest on the period from 1946 to 1957, and in his last chapter he carries his analysis up to 1964 rather than 1960.

Page 108 note 1 See Foster's, Philip excellent study, Education and Social Change in Ghana (Chicago, 1965).Google Scholar

Page 108 note 2 Bretton, , The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah, pp. 1112.Google Scholar

Page 109 note 1 See Apter, David, ‘A Comparative Method for the Study of Politics’, in The American Journal of Sociology (Chicago), LXIV, 3, 11 1958, pp. 221–37.Google Scholar

Page 109 note 2 On new social classes and the utility of class analysis, see Halpern, Manfred, The Politics of Social Change in the Middle East and North Africa (Princeton, 1963), pp. 5178.Google Scholar

Page 110 note 1 Austin, , Politics in Ghana, pp. 1314 and 27.Google Scholar

Page 110 note 2 Ibid. pp. 197–8; Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op.cit. p. 270. Farmers'—especially cocoa farmers'—grievances against the colonial Government and expatriate cocoapurchasing firms were acute in the post-war period. Further, formerly chiefly controlled farmers' associations acquired more populist leadership in the years 1947–52.

Page 111 note 1 Fitch, and Oppenheimer, , Ghana: end of an illusion, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

Page 111 note 2 Killick, Tony, ‘Cocoa,’ in Birmingham, W., Neustadt, I., and Omaboe, E. N. (eds.), A Study of Contemporary Ghana: vol. 1, The Economy of Ghana (Evanston, 1966), p. 238.Google Scholar

Page 111 note 3 Ibid. p. 239; Fitch and Oppenheimer, op. cit. pp. 39–40.

Page 111 note 4 As Polly Hill has demonstrated in a different context in her excellent The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana (Cambridge, 1964).Google Scholar

Page 112 note 1 Fitch and Oppenheimer, op.cit. pp. 54 and 58–9. Many Ashanti chiefs were wealthy, but to use the Asantehene as a typical example of the ‘changing class position of the Ashanti capitalist farmer-chiefs,’ and to confound traditional custodianship with modern ownership, is to lend minimal support to one's case (pp. 64–5). With a different perspective, Austm sees some class difference between the C.P.P. and N.L.M., but not as a salient factor; op. cit. pp. 289–90 and 313–14.

Page 112 note 2 Fitch and Oppenheimer, op.cit. pp. 56–8 and 66–7.

Page 113 note 1 See Busia, , The Position of the Chief in the Modern Political System of Ashanti, pp. 910;Google ScholarChristensen, J. B., Double Descent Among the Fanti (New Haven, 1954), pp. 116–23.Google ScholarRattray, R. S., in Ashanti Law and Constitution (London, 1929),Google Scholar mentions neither the possibility nor an instance in his stool histories of commoners of different lineages working together, independently of theirelders in destoolment and enstoolment proceedings. In only three of the seven stool histories which Rattray relates does he refer to the rights of the commoners working through lineages to have a say in enstoolment and destoolment proceedings. Tordoffnotes some of the new, secular sources of commoner discontent; Ashanti under the Prempehs, pp. 373–84.

Page 113 note 2 Austin, op. cit. pp. 18–26; Apter, , Ghana in Transition, pp. 165–6 and 257–64.Google Scholar

Page 113 note 3 In interviews with associational group leaders in Accra in 1956, Immanuel Wallerstein found that 68.5 per Cent of pro-C.P.P. leaders thought that chiefs should have no role in modem politics, 21.5 per cent some role, while 75.8 per cent of pro-opposition leaders thought the chiefs should play some role, only 24.2 per cent no role. The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast (The Hague, 1964), p. 153.Google Scholar

Page 114 note 1 Fitch and Oppenheimer, op. cit. p. 22.

Page 114 note 2 Brokensha, David, Social Change at Larteh, Ghana (Oxford, 1966), pp. 124–8 and 269.Google Scholar It is unfortunate that Brokensha did not devote somewhat more attention to the role of the C.P.P. than he did. Although he notes its role in a number of contexts, the section on ‘Nationalism and the C.P.P.’ is five pages out of a total of 269. He fails to treat the rise and functions of the C.P.P. in Larteh, and details his accommodation thesis by devoting three of these five pages on the C.P.P. to a rally. Ritual may or may not reflect accurately power relationships; the use of traditional symbols had led some, with little evidence, to note the rise of neo-traditionalism in the C.P.P.

Page 115 note 1 Cf. Austin, op. cit. pp. 175–6.

Page 115 note 2 Kimble, , A Political History of Ghana, pp. 2533 and 528–36.Google Scholar

Page 115 note 3 Austin op. cit. p. 4.

Page 116 note 1 Zolberg, , Creating Political Order, pp. 7882;Google ScholarBing, , Reap the Whirlwind, esp. pp. 179–94, 198229, and 313–39.Google Scholar

Page 116 note 2 See Adu, A. L. (former head of the civil service in Ghana), The Civil Service in the New African States (New York, 1965);Google ScholarSymonds, Richard, The British and Their Successors (Evanston, 1966)Google Scholar, and the quite interesting thoughts in Tiger, Lionel, ‘Bureaucracy and Charisma in Ghana’, in Journal of Asian and African Studies (Toronto), I, 1, 01 1966, pp. 1326.Google Scholar

Page 116 note 3 Bing, op. cit. pp. 145–52 and 179–93.

Page 116 note 4 Bretton, op. cit. pp. 94–6 and 126–9; Bing op. cit. pp. 340–71.

Page 117 note 1 Gutteridge, William, Armed Forces in New States (London, 1962),Google Scholar and Military Institutions and Power in the New States (New York, 1965).Google ScholarAlexander, H. T., African Tightrope (New York, 1965),Google Scholar the reminiscences of Nkrumah's last British Chief of Staff, indicates the political pressures for Africanisation of the officer corps and the story of the sudden, total Africanisation in September 1961.

Page 117 note 2 Bennion, F. A. R., The Constitutional Law of Ghana (London, 1962);Google Scholar Harvey, Law and Social Change in Ghana.

Page 117 note 3 For one analysis which puts the Assembly in its C.P.P. setting, see Lee, J. M., ‘Parliament in Republican Ghana’, in Parliamentary Affairs (London), XVI, 4, 1963, pp. 376–95.Google Scholar See Apter, , Ghana in Transition, pp. 218–33 and 234–56,Google Scholar for a study of the 1951–4 Legislative Assembly.

Page 117 note 4 Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 272 and 285.

Page 118 note 1 Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 21–3.

Page 118 note 2 Bretton, op. cit. p. 10.

Page 118 note 3 Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 88–91.

Page 119 note 1 Bretton, op. cit. pp. 97–100, 111–19, and 180–2.

Page 119 note 2 For instance, the motives for assigning ministerial departments to the President's Office are often reduced to a single variable and misconstrued. The Labour Department was briefly put there at the behest of the T.U.C.; the Chieftaincy Secretariat in order to reduce conflicts and corruption and give direct presidential sanction to decisions; some departments to act as co-ordinating mechanisms (e.g. the Planning Commission); and others in order to reduce political interference (as L. Tiger suggests, op. cit.).

Page 119 note 3 Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 300–15; Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 101–37.

Page 119 note 4 These tendencies include: a heavy commitment to ideology, a revolutionary scope and tempo in modernisation objectives, expected high levels of political mobilisation and popular commitment, high degrees of party hierarchy, centralism, and discipline, and party-associational group fusion and party-government assimilation. See Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. p. 5.

Page 119 note 5 Deutsch, Karl, ‘Social Mobilization and Political Development’, in The American Polilical Science Review (Washington), LV, 3, 09 1961, p. 494.Google Scholar

Page 120 note 1 Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 6–7, 35–7, and 127 ff.

Page 120 note 2 E.g. on cocoa farmers' hold-ups organised by the farmers, not chiefs, see Kimble, op. cit. pp. 45–51, and Report of the [Nowell] Commission on the Marketing of West Africa Cocoa (London, 1938);Google Scholar on economic and social change, Brokensha, op. cit. pp. 35–79, and Tordoff, op. cit. pp. 187–204; on educational demand, Foster, op. cit. pp. 124–37; on post-World War II grievances and groups, Report of the [Watson] Commission on Enquiry into Disturbances in the Gold Coast, 1948 (London, 1948).Google Scholar

Page 120 note 3 Austin, op. cit. pp. 53–102, 111–32, and 171–91.

Page 120 note 4 Apter, , Ghana in Transition, pp. 257–76.Google Scholar

Page 121 note 1 Zolberg, op. cit. p. 24.

Page 121 note 2 Ibid. pp. 21–2; Austin, op. cit. pp. 184–94 and 253–75.

Page 121 note 3 Apter, Ghana in Transition, p. 202.

Page 121 note 4 Zolberg, op. cit. p. 23.

Page 121 note 5 Apter, , Ghana in Transition, pp. 208–9;Google ScholarNkrumah, Kwame, Autobiography (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 133 and 207–9.Google Scholar

Page 122 note 1 Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. 292–310.

Page 122 note 2 Ibid. p. 293.

Page 123 note 1 Zolberg, op. cit. p. 98.

Page 123 note 2 Brokensha, op. cit. p. xix.

Page 123 note 3 See Wallerstein, Immanuel, ‘The Decline of the Party in Single-Party African States’, in LaPalombara, Joseph and Weiner, Myron (eds.), Political Parties and Political Development (Princeton, 1966), pp. 201–14.Google Scholar

Page 123 note 4 On the T.U.C., see St Clair Drake and Lacy, L. A., ‘Government versus the Unions,’ in Carter, G. M. (ed.), Politics in Africa: seven cases (New York, 1966);Google ScholarLynd, G. E. (pseud.), The Politics of African Trade Unionism (New York, 1968);Google ScholarDavies, Ioan, African Trade Unions (London, 1966);Google Scholar and E. J. Berg and J. Butler, ‘Trade Unions’, in Coleman and Rosberg,. op. cit.—this suffers from a too narrow use of the term ‘political’.

Page 124 note 1 Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 293–303; Legum, Colin, ‘Socialism in Ghana: a political interpretation,’ in Friedland, W. H. and Rosberg, C. G. (eds), African Socialism' (Stanford, 1964), pp. 132–4 and 144.Google Scholar Bing, in particular, calls attention to the constant conflicts over decisions in the C.P.P.—e.g. the refusal of ministers to support decisions made in Cabinet and their readiness to oppose them both implicitly and explicitly in parliamentary debates.

Page 124 note 2 Bretton, op. cit. pp. 129–36; Apter, ‘Ghana’, in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 304–8; Colin Legum, ‘Socialism in Ghana’, in Friedland and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 134–58; Finlay, David, in Finlay, D., Holsti, O., and Fagen, R., Enemies in Politics (Chicago, 1967), pp. 97183.Google Scholar

Page 125 note 1 Austin, op. cit. pp. 32–48.

Page 126 note 1 These categories are proposed by Almond, G. and Powell, G. B., Comparative Politics: a developmental approach (Boston, 1965), pp. 190212.Google Scholar

Page 126 note 2 Tony Killick, ‘The Possibilities of Economic Control’, in Birmingham, Neustadt, and Omaboe, op. cit. pp. 411–38; and the excellent pre-coup analysis by Rimmer, Douglas, ‘The Crisis in the Ghana Economy’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), IV, I, 05 1966, pp. 1732.Google Scholar

Page 126 note 3 See Report of the [Akainyah] Commission of Enquiry into Alleged Irregularities and Malpractices in Connection with the Issue of Import Licences (Accra, 1964),Google Scholar and Summary of the Report of the [Ollennu] Commission of Enquiry into Irregularities and Malpractices in the Grant of Import Licences (Accra, 1967),Google Scholar under the new régime.

Page 127 note 1 Fitch and Oppenheimer, op. cit. pp. 82–4 and 109–30.

Page 127 note 2 Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 128–34.

Page 127 note 3 Representative of this kind of issue was the Government'srepeatedly unsuccessful attempt to pass a law which would primarily have normalised existing conditions with regard to marriage, divorce, and inheritance. If the law had been passed, it would have been terribly difficult to enforce.

Page 128 note 1 Apter, ‘Ghana,’ in Coleman and Rosberg, op. cit. pp. 293 and 301.

Page 128 note 2 Apter, , Ghana in Transition, pp. 331, 337, and 365–6;Google Scholar Zolberg, op. cit. pp. 134–45.

Page 128 note 3 See the (doctored) Report of the [Abraham] Commission on Trade Malpractices in Ghana (Accra, 1966);Google ScholarGhana Economic Survey, 1965 (Accra, 1966), pp. 97103.Google Scholar

Page 129 note 1 On Nkrumah, see Apter, David, ‘Nkrumah, Charisma, and the Coup’, in Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.), XCVII, 3, 1968, pp. 773–9;Google Scholar Austin, op. cit. pp. 40–2 and 315–16; Bretton, op. cit. pp. 21–36.

Page 129 note 2 Drake and Lacy, ‘Government versus the Unions’, in Carter, op. cit.