[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/16167.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Successful Ghana Election of 2008: A Convenient Myth? Ethnicity in Ghana's elections revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Jockers, Heinz
  • Kohnert, Dirk
  • Nugent, Paul
Abstract
Ghana’s 2008 elections have been hailed by national and international observers as a model for Africa. This perception has prevailed despite persistent concerns about 'ethnic block voting' and electoral fraud. Electoral malpractice and vote rigging along ethnic lines in Ghana's virtual two-party system could regain a decisive importance as a 'third force' which could tip the balance in future, possibly coming to represent an even more important factor than the smaller opposition parties. Unfortunate diplomatic and technocratic biases in election monitoring, combined with a reluctance on the part of the responsible authorities to investigate, in what appears to be a long history of fraudulent 'ethnic block voting', amounts to a dangerous time bomb of unresolved conflict which could explode in future elections.

Suggested Citation

  • Jockers, Heinz & Kohnert, Dirk & Nugent, Paul, 2009. "The Successful Ghana Election of 2008: A Convenient Myth? Ethnicity in Ghana's elections revisited," MPRA Paper 16167, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16167
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/16167/1/MPRA_paper_16167.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gordon Crawford, 2008. "Decentralization and the Limits to Poverty Reduction: Findings from Ghana," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 235-258.
    2. Sebastian Elischer, 2008. "Do African parties contribute to democracy? Some findings from Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 43(2), pages 175-201.
    3. Kohnert, Dirk, 2008. "Entfremdung und Ausgrenzung: Afrikas neuer Nationalismus in Zeiten der Globalisierung," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 197-222.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jules Baleyte & Amory Gethin & Yajna Govind & Thomas Piketty, 2020. "Social Inequalities and the Politicization of Ethnic Cleavages in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, 1999-2019," Working Papers halshs-03022210, HAL.
    2. Franklin Oduro & Mohammed Awal & Maxwell Agyei Ashon, 2014. "A dynamic mapping of the political settlement in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-028-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Frimpong Boamah, Emmanuel, 2018. "Constitutional economics of Ghana’s decentralization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 256-267.
    2. Robinson D. BoyeBandie, 2015. "The Effects of the District Assemblies Common Fund on District Assemblies Internally Generated Revenue Mobilisation in Ghana: An Analysis of the Early Years of the Fund," International Journal of Asian Social Science, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 5(9), pages 529-542, September.
    3. Dirk Kohnert, 2009. "New Nationalism and Development in Africa," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 44(1), pages 111-123.
    4. Seregious Be-ere, 2022. "Decentralization Reforms in Developing Countries Designed to Champion the Interests of Central Politicians and not Grassroots Development," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 38(1), pages 27-49, March.
    5. Alexander Stoecker, 2021. "Partisan Alignment and Political Corruption: Evidence from a New Democracy," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 192-21, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.
    6. Vincent Ekow Arkorful & Benjamin Kweku Lugu, 2023. "Understanding Rate Evasion Behavior in Local Governance: Application of an Extended Version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1035-1054, September.
    7. Nwankwo Cletus Famous, 2020. "Rurality and Party System Fragmentation in the Nigerian Presidential Elections of the Fourth Republic," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 59-85, June.
    8. Kohnert, Dirk, 2009. "Democratisation via elections in an African 'narco state'? The case of Guinea-Bissau," MPRA Paper 19109, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, 2021. "Local Revenue Mobilization and Composite Budget Implementation in Ghana: Examining the Challenges," Journal of Public Administration and Governance, Macrothink Institute, vol. 11(4), pages 115129-1151, December.
    10. Manila Khisa, 2020. "Decentralization of Public Services and the Role of Local Government in Rural Development: Findings From Bangladesh," Journal of Public Administration and Governance, Macrothink Institute, vol. 10(1), pages 249261-2492, December.
    11. Kohnert, Dirk, 2009. "New Nationalism and Development in Africa: Review Article," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 44(1), pages 111-123.
    12. Alexander Stoecker, 2021. "Partisan Alignment and Political Corruption: Evidence from a New Democracy," MAGKS Papers on Economics 202101, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    13. Ole Frahm, 2012. "Defining the Nation: National Identity in South Sudanese Media Discourse," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 47(1), pages 21-49.
    14. Issah Justice Musah-Surugu & Albert Ahenkan & Justcie Nyigmah Bawole, 2019. "Too weak to lead: motivation, agenda setting and constraints of local government to implement decentralized climate change adaptation policy in Ghana," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 587-607, April.
    15. Stoecker, Alexander, 2022. "Partisan alignment and political corruption: Evidence from a new democracy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    16. Kohnert, Dirk, 2022. "Des dictatures ouest-africaines « éclairées » contestées par la capture de l'État ? Perspectives du Bénin, du Togo et du Sénégal ['Enlightened’ West African dictatorship challenged by state capture," MPRA Paper 114934, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Ramírez, Juan Mauricio & Díaz, Yadira & Bedoya, Juan Guillermo, 2017. "Property Tax Revenues and Multidimensional Poverty Reduction in Colombia: A Spatial Approach," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 406-421.
    18. Kohnert, Dirk, 2022. "'Enlightened' West African dictatorship challenged by state capture ? Insights from Benin, Togo and Senegal," MPRA Paper 114913, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Matthew Sabbi, 2023. "‘We Did Many Projects Together’: Boundary-Spanning Strategies of Councillors in Rural Ghana," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 23(2), pages 183-202, April.
    20. Badru Bukenya & Pablo Yanguas, 2013. "Building state capacity for inclusive development. The politics of public sector reform," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-025-13, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    elections; ethnicity; election observation; informal institutions; impunity; Ghana; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics
    • N47 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Africa; Oceania
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:16167. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.