The Politics and Challenge of Institutional Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper draws insights from theories of institutional change to analyze the interface between indigenous and contemporary socio-political  institutions of governance in Sub-Saharan Africa. It shows that, although critical junctures are assumed to be path-departing moments, they canresult in fundamental divisions in overall institutional structures by grafting new institutions onto existing ones while at the same time re-enforcing the reproduction of existing institutional logics. Tracing the politics of  institutional development and change in SSA over time, the paper shows that colonial rule left an unintended legacy of institutional dualism—the formal and the informal—which the recent processes of structural   adjustment and democratizations have reenforced. Thus, the development of governance institutions in SSA is far from over  as actors and interests associated with both formal and informal institutional settings compete for legitimacy and sovereignty, while at the same time introducing new goals to enhance their efficiencies, and combining existing elements within the overall institutional repertoire in a process of change within and beyond path dependence.KEY WORDS: Governance, Socio-Political Institutions, Institutional  Transformation, Political Theorie

Socio-Economic Transformation in Ghana: Comparative Analysis of Approaches to Development in the Nkrumah and Rawlings Years

Like many countries that attained independence during the cold war era, Ghana‟s internal politics, as well as its socio-economic transformation discourse, have been shaped by divisions between right-wing elites who espouse market-led approaches and their left-wing counterparts who favour state-led approaches to development. The two approaches were experimented in Ghana during the eras of former presidents Kwame Nkrumah and Jerry John Rawlings. Kwame Nkrumah‟s era witnessed the adoption of state-led approaches that used the instruments and power of the state to engineer socio-economic transformation. The Rawlings‟ era, on the other hand, was marked by the introduction of market-led approaches to social and economic transformation in a way that dismantled public enterprises and social provisioning established under Nkrumah. The use of two opposing approaches by these two influential leaders in Ghana is puzzling because both of them were deeply associated with the Ghanaian left, and shared a common vision of developing Ghanaian society on basis of socialist principles. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the trajectories of development under these two Ghanaian leaders with close attention to the factors that shaped their approaches, choices, policy instruments, and their associated legacies. Among others, the paper shows that approaches to development implemented by Nkrumah and Rawlings were shaped by differences in personal idiosyncrasies, geo-politics, domestic policy challenges, and the internal control mechanism of their respective governments.RésuméÀ l‟instar de la plupart des pays africains qui ont accedé à l‟indépendance pendant la période de la guerre froide, les transformations politiques et socio-économiques du Ghana se sont forgées sur base des deux camps: d‟une part les élites qui ont adopté les méthodes de l‟économie du marché, et d‟autre part ceux qui ont mis l‟accent sur les méthodes basées sur l‟intervention et le dévelopment de l‟état. L‟expérience de ces deux approches avait été tentée pendant les régimes des anciens présidents Kwame Nkrumah et Jerry John Rawlings. Le régime de Nkrumah a connu l‟adoption de l‟état comme moteur socio-économique tandis que celui de Rawlings a été axé sur le marché, quitte à démanteler les entreprises publiques et services sociaux établis sous Nkrumah. L'utilisation de ces deux approches opposées est déconcertante puisque que les deux dirigeants ont été associés à une politique de gauche épousant une vision de développement de la société ghanéenne sur base des principes socialistes. Cet article fournit une analyse comparative des trajectoires de développement sous ces deux dirigeants ghanéens. Entre autre, il démontre que les différences dans leur approches respectives du développement ont été façonnées par leur idiosyncrasie, la géopolitique de l'époque, les défis réliés aux affaires intérieures et les mécanismes de contrôle interne.Key Words: Development, Public policy, Nkrumah, Rawlings, State-led, Market-led, Social Policy, Ghan