Local elites and national politics in Ghana : a case study of political centralization and local politics in Offinso, Ashanti (1945-1966)

• Main Author: Crook, R. C.
• Published: London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London) 1978
• Subjects: 320.96670904
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.452621

Since the mid-1960s a considerable literature, both theoretical and empirical, has developed which accepts the idea that the politics of modern African states can be better understood through an examination of localcentral relations, viewed from the local perspective. Few empirical studies, however, have been published which examine in any detail the processes and structures linking local and central politics. The present study deals with this theme in Ghana between 1945 and 1966, examining the changing relationship of local elites to regional and national elites, and focusing particularly on changing institutional structures. It is contended that the concepts of elite, class and formal organization are more appropriate to such a task than those of 'political brokerage' or the 'clientelist state'. The 1945 to 1958 period is concerned mainly with the struggle of the colonial Native Authority elite for the preservation of its own position and of the integrity of the local institutions upon which it depended. In the process of developing extra-local alliances the local struggle becomes subsumed into the action of an emergent class and the national schism between the parties of 'localism' and 'centralism'. Between 1959 and 1966 the focus shifts to the study of the processes through which the dominant CPP both achieves centralization and absorbs all other political institutions except the civil service. Major new evidence is brought to bear on the development of the CPP bureaucracy and the government field administration in this period. It is concluded that the CPP did build a large and relatively effective apparat linking centre and locality, albeit one with many parallel hierarchies and a peculiarly unscrupulous organizational morality. The kind of centralization and bureaucratic expansion achieved reflected not just a centrally-initiated policy but was reciprocally shaped by the local and regional elites who helped to build the Party. Hence the CPP did not destroy local political life but integrated it into a nationally-articulated hierarchy.