'No-party' politics and local democracy in Africa: Rawlings' Ghana in the 1990s and the 'Ugandan model'

Democratization

Volumn 6, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 114-138

  Crook, Richard C ^a  

^a INSTITUTE OF DEVELOPMENT STUDIES   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEMOCRACY; INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK; NATIONAL POLITICS; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

GHANA;

EID: 0033392835     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510349908403635     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. See Civil Service Law, 1993 (PNDCL 327); Local Government Act, 1993 (Act 462); District Assemblies Common Fund Act, 1993 (Act 455).
2. See R. Crook, 'Four Years of the District Assemblies in Operation: Decentralization, Democratization and Administrative Performance', Public Administration and Development, Vol.14 (1994), pp.339-64 and R. Crook and J. Manor, Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa: Participation, Accountability and Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
3. Interview, New African, Dec. 1988.
4. Ghana, The Search for True Democracy in Ghana (Accra: Information Services Department, n.d. (probably 1985).
5. J. Barkan, Politics and Public Policy in Kenya and Tanzania (New York: Praeger, 1984); D. Martin, 'The 1975 Tanzanian Election: The Disturbing Six Per Cent', in G. Hermet, R. Rose and A. Rouquié, Elections Without Choice (London: Macmillan, 1978), and L. Cliffe and J. Saul, Socialism in Tanzania (Nairobi: East Africa Publishing House, 1972).
6. J. Nyerere, Freedom and Socialism: Ultimi and Ujamaa (Dar-es-Salaam, Oxford University Press, 1968); Kweka, One-Party Democracy and the Multiparty state', in Colin Legum and G. Mmari (eds.), Mwalimu: the Influence of Nyerere (London: James Currey, 1995).
7. E. Brett, 'Rebuilding Organisation Capacity in Uganda under the National Resistance Movement', Journal of Modem African Studies, Vol.32, No.l (1994), pp.53-80; N. Kasfir, 'The Ugandan Elections of 1989', in Holger B. Hansen and M. Twaddle (eds.), Changing Uganda: the Dilemmas of Structural Adjustment and Revolutionary Change (London: James Currey, 1991) and N. Kasfir, 'No-Party Democracy in Uganda', Journal of Democracy, Vol.9, No.2 (1998), pp.49-63.
8. Ghana, Outlines of the Decentralization Plan of the PNDC (Accra: Information Services Department, n.d. (circa Dec. 1982).
9. Committee for the Defence of the Revolution, Committee for the Defence of the Revolution Guidelines (Accra: Nsamankow Press, 1986).
10. Cited by Nelson Kasfir from Museveni's book, Sowing the Mustard Seed: the Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in Uganda in Kasfir, 'No-Party Democracy', p.60.
11. Kasfir, 'No-Party Democracy
12. Ghana, 77;? Search for True Democracy.
13. Report in West Africa (London), 17-23 Sept. 1990.
14. There is some consensus around the view that the PNDC had concluded that it could easily win a competitive election if it formed a Rawlings party, whilst at the same time silencing both its domestic and international critics.
15. The CDRs were formally incorporated into sub-District bodies such as the village-level Unit Committees and were given a 'watchdog' role both inside and outside the Assemblies, on the assumption that the nomination procedure would be used to ensure that at least some CDR representatives were always present. Kwamena Ahwoi, 'CDRs and the New Democratic System', Local Government Information Digest, No.6 (1989), pp.15-19.
16. Local Government Information Digest, No.7:5 (1994).
17. Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 1589 of 1994.
18. See Legislative Instrument (L.I.) 540 of 1967 and L.I. 1514 of 1991.
19. Levina Owusu, 'Integration of Sub-District Structures and Communities in the Development Process', Local Government Information Digest, No.lO:6 (1998).
20. Press statement by Mr Kwamena Ahwoi, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Local Government Information Digest, No. 11:1 (1998).
21. B. Ankomah, 'Elections Extraordinary', New African (Dec. 1998); E. Gyimah-Boadi, 'Economic Recovery and Politics in the PNDC's Ghana', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol.28, No.3 (1990), pp.328-43; J.R.A. Ayee, The Implementation of the 1988-89 District Assembly Elections in Ghana', Africa Insight, Vol.20, No.3 (1990), pp. 169-75; Wesi Africa, 9 Nov. 1987.
22. J.R.A. Ayee, The Implementation', and J.R.A. Ayee, 'Decentralization and local government under the PNDC of Ghana', unpublished paper presented to CODESRIA (University of Ghana 1-3 March 1991); Africa Report, July 1989; S. Woode, Making the District Assembly \Vork (Accra: Tema Press, 1989).
23. Figures based on a quota sample survey of 628 respondents; see Crook and Manor, Democracy.
24. Crook and Manor, Democracy, p.219.
25. Local Government Information Digest, Vol.5: 1 (1992).
26. The very idea of the district and its Assembly as a legitimate collective enterprise was further undermined by 'rebate' schemes to directly relate Assembly contributions to village projects to the amount of tax paid by a community, although even these schemes had mostly failed in the two case studies by 1992.
27. Crook and Manor, Democracy, p.267.
28. K. Kessey, Financing Local Development in Ghana (Kumasi) (Dortmund: SPRING Research Series No. 12, Faculty of Spatial Planning, University of Dortmund, 1995), p. 157. The average score on an agree/disagree scale of +2 to -2 was -0.47.
29. J.R.A. Ayee, 'Financing Sub-national Governments in Ghana: the District Assemblies Common Fund', Regional and Federal Studies, Vol.5 (1995), pp.292-306.
30. Local Government Information Digest, Vol.7, No.3 (1994);
31. J.R.A. Ayee, 'The Measurement of Decentralization: The Ghanaian Experience', African Affairs, Vol.95, No.378 (1996), p.44.
32. Calculated from figures in P. Nugent, Big Men, Small Boys and Politics in Ghana: Power Ideology and the Burden of History, 1982-1994 (London and New York: Pintcr, 1995)
33. and J.R.A. Ayee, 'The December 1996 General Elections in Ghana', Electoral Studies, Vol.16, No.3 (1997), pp.416-27.
34. Figures provided by kind permission of the Electoral Commission, July 1998.
35. Local Government Information Digest, Vol.11: 2 (1998).
36. In 1996, the government was still referring to the plans for setting up offices of the deconcentrated line Ministries under DA control as 'yet to be implemented', and as of 1998, the legislation for staff to be transferred to a new Local Government Service was still 'in preparation'. See 'Address by Nathaniel Qauo, Presidential Staffer, to the 8th Annual Workshop on Decentralization, University of Ghana', Local Government Information Digest, Vol.9: 5 (1996), and 'Press statement by the Minister for Local Government and Rural Devlopment, Mr Kwamena Ahwoi', Local Government Information Digest, Vol. 11: 1 (1998).
37. P. Nugent, Big Men, p.276.
38. Crook and Manor, Democracy, p.245.
39. J.R.A. Ayee.'The Politics of the Election of Distict Chief Executives under the NDC party Government in Ghana', unpublished paper (Department of Politics, University of Glasgow, 1994).
40. Local Government Information Digest, Vol.10: 5 (1997).
41. Ayee, 'The December 1996 General Elections'; R. Jeffries, 'The Ghanaian Elections of 1996: Towards a Consolidation of Democracy?', African Affairs, Vol.97, No.387 (1998), pp.189-208.
42. Address by Nana Ato Dadzie, Presidential Staffer, to Third DCE Conference at Sekondi, 29 October 1996, Local Government Information Digest, Vol.9:5 (1996).
43. Kwamena Ahwoi, 'CDRs and the New Democratic System', Local Government Information Digest, Vol.6 (1989), pp.15-19.
44. See Local Government Digest, Vol.6 (1989).
45. See K. Boafo-Arthur, 'Party Organization, Finance and the Democratic Process: The Case of the Opposition Parties', in J.R.A. Ayee, The 1996 General Elections and Democratic Consolidation in Ghana (Legon: Department of Political Science, University of Ghana, 1998), p.81; Free Press (Accra), 22-28 July 1998.
46. Ayee, 'the December 1996 General Elections', p.426; Jeffries, op. cit., p.200; P. Nugent, op. cit.
47. E. Gyimah-Boadi, 'Economic Recovery and Politics in the PNDC's Ghana', Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol.28, No.3 (1990), pp.328-43.
48. Address by the PNDC Secretary for Local Government, Agona Swedru, 27 July 1988, in: Ghana, From Centre to the Grassroots (Accra: Ministry of Local Government, 1991), p.15.
49. P. Nugent, op. cit., p. 178.
50. Ghana, op cit., p.79.
51. See P. Evans, 'Government Action, Social Capital and Development: Reviewing the Evidence on Synergy', World Development, Vol.24, No.6, (1996), p.1 125.