How have the waves of democracy and decentralization that swept the developing world in recent decades affected states—among the most important drivers of poverty and prosperity—at national and local levels in Ghana and beyond? State actors beneath the national level—what Barry Driscoll calls the local state—have considerable responsibility for carrying out state functions, but they are also forced to compete for these local state offices. How does a local state actually work in poor twentieth-century countries? This book offers a descriptive account, as well as a causal explanation, of how political competition affects the local state in Ghana. Driscoll shows how closely fought elections drive local state institutions to provide patronage. The source of these demands for patronage comes not from rent-seeking bureaucrats or landed elites but from the government’s own party volunteers. Driscoll explains how electoral competition affects how local state actors are insulated from such patronage demands. Moreover, these highly competitive, patronage-providing local governments actually have relatively better-qualified senior civil servants at their disposal. Driscoll makes sense of this paradox by introducing the logic of building administrative capacity in order to provide patronage. He then abstracts from the case of Ghana to generalize about how the effect of political competition is shaped by the locally salient variety of clientelism, which in turn is conditioned by the strength of the party system. The book draws on fourteen months of fieldwork in six of Ghana’s districts, far from the nation’s capital city. Ethnographic and interview data come from time spent with market traders, tax collectors, politicians, and other figures in local state offices. Quantitative data come from a survey covering almost all local governments. The result is a detailed account of Ghana’s local state power dynamics that has relevant implications for states across the developing world.

The challenge of teaching international studies is to help students think coherently about the multiple causes and effects of global problems. In International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions, award-winning scholars Scott Straus and Barry Driscoll give students a clear framework that pinpoints how key factors—forces, interactions, and tensions—contribute to world events, with both global and local consequences. The authors first show students how to look for common patterns in global issues by introducing four world-shaping forces: global markets, shifting centers of power, information and communications technologies, and global governance. They systematically trace how these forces prompt interactions among world actors and thus give rise to a set of tensions that spur key challenges. The framework enables students to ask and answer for themselves—Who is interacting? Where did such interactions develop? What policies or institutions govern them? Why are they getting certain global and local reactions? Students then apply the framework to the global problems that matter most to them: human rights abuses, economic inequality, terrorism, forced migration, pandemics and global health responses, climate change, food security, and more. International Studies raises the bar for the Introduction to IS course, moving beyond interdisciplinary, and into the realm of critical analysis to increase student relevancy and motivation. Give your students the SAGE edge! SAGE edge offers a robust online environment featuring an impressive array of free tools and resources for review, study, and further exploration, keeping both instructors and students on the cutting edge of teaching and learning. Learn more at edge.sagepub.com/straus1e. Bundle and Save! Your students only pay $5 for The CQ Press Career Guide for Global Politics Students when you bundle it with the print version of International Studies. Use Bundle ISBN: 978-1-5443-5204-6

Colonial and national interventions have considerably changed the natural resource regimes regarding water and land in Northern Ghana. However, this change has not led to the establishment of new institutions, but different actors - farmers, bureaucrats, earthpriests, chiefs, and politicians - are continuously engaged in negotiation process over (natural) resources. While the institutional and distributional outcomes of these negotiation processes remain inconclusive they have led to a precarious local power balance, in which different actors rely on different institutions and changing political alliances to pursue their interests.

Africa is a continent of 54 countries and over a billion people. However, despite the rich diversity of the African experience, it is striking that continuations and themes seem to be reflected across the continent, particularly south of the Sahara. Questions of underdevelopment, outside exploitation, and misrule are characteristic of many - if not most-states in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this Very Short Introduction Ian Taylor explores how politics is practiced on the African continent, considering the nature of the state in Sub-Saharan Africa and why its state structures are generally weaker than elsewhere in the world. Exploring the historical and contemporary factors which account for Africa's underdevelopment, he also analyses why some African countries suffer from high levels of political violence while others are spared. Unveilling the ways in which African state and society actually function beyond the formal institutional façade, Taylor discusses how external factors - both inherited and contemporary - act upon the continent. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The paths of African states have diverged markedly since the termination of colonial rule. Nevertheless, Ghana, the first African state to achieve independence, epitomizes both the political gyrations and the overall stagnation common to many other countries on the continent. This work concentrates on the 1969–1982 period in Ghana, focusing on two interrelated facets of African politics: the decline of state power and authority, and adjustments to political recession. The author traces the dual patterns of diminution of the state and the adaptation of autonomous coping mechanisms in the separate spheres of political leadership, political structures and institutions, ideology, and political economy. The dynamic of state-society interactions is then treated in terms of the rhythm of dissent, conflict, and disengagement. Dr. Chazan provides a comprehensive study of Ghanaian politics from the 1970s to the present. By systematically analyzing the process of political decline and regeneration, she highlights similar processes apparent elsewhere in Africa. The stress on the subtleties and direction of political change has important implications for policymakers and policy analysts alike.

Patrons, Clients, and Empire challenges the stereotypes of despotic imperial power in Asian, African, and Pacific colonies by analysing the relationship between rulers and rulers on both sides of the imperial equation. It seeks an answer to the question: how were European officials able to govern so many societies for so long? Rejecting the usual explanations of 'collaboration' and indirect rule', this study looks to pre-imperial structures in the indigenous hierarchies which supplied patrimonial models of chieftaincy for territorial government. For nawabs, chiefs, emirs, sultans, and their officials and followers there were dynastic and economic advantages in accepting the terms of European over-rule, as well as the threat of deposition. For European officials, few in numbers and with limited military and financial resources, there were ready-made systems of local government that could be co-opted, reformed, or left relatively untouched. Both sides played politics as patrons and clients within a dual system of administration based on a mixture of force and self-interest. Surveying a wide variety of cases and employing a patron-client model, this study embraces pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial politics in new states. It covers the chronology of early European dependency on local rulers; the reasons for reversal of status among chiefs and administrators; the longer period of political bargaining over access to local resources in terms of land, labour, and taxes; and the ultimate fate of indigenous rulers in the period of party politics leading to independence.

The first version of this Source Book argued the case for a "National Integrity System", an holistic approach to transparency and accountability and embracing a range of accountability "pillars", democratic, judicial, media and civil society. The expression has since passed into common usage in development circles, and the argument for an holistic approach to anti-corruption efforts has similarly achieved a widespread consensus. The fight against corruption is not wholly a moral one, in the sense that it is a struggle against the intrinsic "evil" of corruption. Certainly there is a moral element - and one which cuts across al major religions and societies throughout the world. But the compelling reason for the struggle is the suffering and deprivation corruption brings to whole societies, and to the world's most poor. It is concern for the latter, rather than a distaste for the corrupt and their deeds, that rightly drives the global movement against corruption.

'The Challenge of Food Security addresses one of the key development challenges of our time. It examines issues related to food security in a comprehensive manner that covers both theoretical perspectives and policy challenges. It will be a key reference book for anyone interested in issues related to food security.' Philippe Cullet, University of London, UK 'This is a timely book which addresses one of the greatest challenges for international regulation: food security. The book is a comprehensive treatment of various aspects of food security from its origins to the relationship between food security and other values, the role that commodity trading plays in exacerbating food insecurity, the importance of adequate food governance, together with specific food security problems like fish, water and genetic resources. The editors should be congratulated on a stimulating collection of essays that brings together a diverse range of scholars and which sheds real light on the complex dimensions of the food security debate.' Fiona Smith, University College London, UK This timely study addresses the pressing issue of food security through a range of interdisciplinary contributions, providing both scholarly and policy-making perspectives. It sets the discussion on food security within the little-studied context of its international legal and regulatory framework. The expert contributors explore the key issues from a development perspective and through the lens of existing governance and policy systems with a view to articulating how these systems can be made more effective in dealing with the roots of food insecurity. The book considers the root causes of food insecurity before discussing the regulatory challenges inherent in reconciling food production and sustainability to ensure both adequate supply of and equitable access to food, particularly in light of emerging issues such as food price volatility, 'land grabbing' and the need to coordinate the actions of the multitude of actors that influence food policy and regulation. It highlights the need for more equitable, transparent and coherent policy and regulatory approaches to the myriad of issues that make up the food security challenge. This cross-cutting study will appeal to researchers in law, international relations, agricultural science and food systems, as well as to policy makers in government and international organisations that engage with policy and regulation of food security issues. It will also be essential reading for professionals in non-governmental organisations that are interested in development issues in general and food security in particular.

Ghana has witnessed a 'revolution through the ballot box', since its return to constitutional rule in 1993. Yet this period of sustained democratic government in an era of globalization and liberal triumphalism has brought with it new demands. How has Ghana faced up to the problems of institution-building, state-market relations and democratic leadership? Can it deal with the challenges posed by security, human rights and foreign policy in the twenty-first century? This unique collection interrogates all these issues and assesses the future of the democratic experiment in one of sub-Saharan Africa's rare 'islands of peace'. In doing so, it provides an invaluable guide to Ghana's political past, present and future.

The electoral process has been an integral part of the political landscape of independent Africa for more than a quarter-century and has roots going back to traditional African societies. An examination of the independence period demonstrates the rich diversity of forms, experiences, and meanings of elections in Africa. For some observers, elections are a clear example of multiple failures in Africa-the failure of democracy and institutional transfer and the breakdown of much of the African political process in general. The authors of this book argue that elections in Africa have played a much more significant role than has commonly been recognized; that in spite of problems, elections are an important part of African contemporary political life. It has been too easy to dismiss elections in Africa as irrelevant because there are fewer today than there were two decades ago or because they have frequently failed to conform to democratic norms. However, in a period in which the primary trends of government are toward exclusion, African elections provide one of the few instruments of political action open to civil society. This study of the electoral process suggests a number of themes and conclusions about the relationship of the electoral process to state power and institutions, elite competition, mass participation, legitimacy and its limits, ethnic conflict, mobilization, party competition, authoritarian regimes, the growing incidence of electoral violence, and mass support for democratic values. Fred M. Hayward's substantive introduction discusses the electoral process in general. Eight case studies of key African countries then illustrate the varied meanings and implications of elections in independent Africa, and in the final chapter Hayward draws conclusions about the role and impact of elections. It is clear that although electoral processes have demonstrated a certain fragility, both the form and the process have shown remarkable resilience.