IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jodeso/v27y2011i1p29-56.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Politics of Public Policy in Ghana

Author

Listed:
  • Michael W. Kpessa

    (Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, Canada)

Abstract

This article examines the trajectories and approaches to public policy making in Africa. Using process tracing interlaced with analysis of historical records, secondary literature, and elite interviews, the article shows that since the 1990s, policy making in some African countries, especially Ghana, has been witnessing a gradual shift away from bureaucratic approaches to policy making to the ones that directly engage the citizenry through consultation and open public participation. The article shows that this shift to citizenry participation is largely due to an emphasis in the development literature on good governance broadly defined to include public participation, and the view of civil society as a platform for social transformation. The article provides a step-by-step analysis of strategies used in recent social security reforms in Ghana to illustrate this change in approach to public policy, and shows that public participation approach to policy making is fraught with several structural challenges and impediments that not only privilege elites’ preferences over the unorganized rural dwellers but also questions some of the fundamental principles of the good governance mantra.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael W. Kpessa, 2011. "The Politics of Public Policy in Ghana," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 27(1), pages 29-56, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jodeso:v:27:y:2011:i:1:p:29-56
    DOI: 10.1177/0169796X1002700103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0169796X1002700103
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0169796X1002700103?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan Fowler, 1991. "The Role of NGOs in Changing State‐Society Relations: Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 9(1), pages 53-84, March.
    2. E. A. Brett, 1993. "Voluntary Agencies as Development Organizations: Theorizing the Problem of Efficiency and Accountability," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 24(2), pages 269-304, April.
    3. Bratton, Michael, 1989. "The politics of government-NGO relations in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 569-587, April.
    4. Haas, Peter M., 1992. "Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(1), pages 1-35, January.
    5. Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Decentralization of Governance and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 185-205, Fall.
    6. Éric Montpetit, 2003. "Public Consultations in Policy Network Environments: The Case of Assisted Reproductive Technology Policy in Canada," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 29(1), pages 95-109, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. S. Akbar Zaidi, 1999. "NGO failure and the need to bring back the state," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 259-271.
    2. White, Robert & Eicher, Carl K., 1999. "Ngo'S And The African Farmer: A Skeptical Perspective," Staff Paper Series 11532, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    3. Leonard, David K. & Bloom, Gerald & Hanson, Kara & O’Farrell, Juan & Spicer, Neil, 2013. "Institutional Solutions to the Asymmetric Information Problem in Health and Development Services for the Poor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 71-87.
    4. Brass, Jennifer N., 2012. "Why Do NGOs Go Where They Go? Evidence from Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 387-401.
    5. Edwards, Michael & Hulme, David, 1996. "Too close for comfort? the impact of official aid on nongovernmental organizations," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 961-973, June.
    6. Christy Cannon Lorgen, 1998. "Dancing with the state: the role of NGOs in health care and health policy," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(3), pages 323-339.
    7. Claire Mercer, 2002. "NGOs, civil society and democratization: a critical review of the literature," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 2(1), pages 5-22, January.
    8. Vakil, Anna C., 1997. "Confronting the classification problem: Toward a taxonomy of NGOs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(12), pages 2057-2070, December.
    9. Wiktorowicz, Quintan, 2002. "The Political Limits to Nongovernmental Organizations in Jordan," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 77-93, January.
    10. Brass, Jennifer N. & Longhofer, Wesley & Robinson, Rachel S. & Schnable, Allison, 2018. "NGOs and international development: A review of thirty-five years of scholarship," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 136-149.
    11. Claude Paraponaris, 2017. "Plateformes numériques, conception ouverte et emploi," Post-Print halshs-01614430, HAL.
    12. Andrew B. Whitford & Derrick Anderson, 2021. "Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1053-1070, October.
    13. Andersson, Krister P. & Smith, Steven M. & Alston, Lee J. & Duchelle, Amy E. & Mwangi, Esther & Larson, Anne M. & de Sassi, Claudio & Sills, Erin O. & Sunderlin, William D. & Wong, Grace Y., 2018. "Wealth and the distribution of benefits from tropical forests: Implications for REDD+," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 510-522.
    14. Barry Eichengreen and Fabio Ghironi., 1997. "European Monetary Unification and International Monetary Cooperation," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C97-091, University of California at Berkeley.
    15. Jeanie Bukowski, 2017. "A “new water culture†on the Iberian Peninsula? Evaluating epistemic community impact on water resources management policy," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(2), pages 239-264, March.
    16. Mateos-Garcia, Juan & Steinmueller, W. Edward, 2008. "The institutions of open source software: Examining the Debian community," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 333-344, December.
    17. Catherine Long, 2017. "Delegated Service Authority: Institutional Evolution of PEPFAR Health-Based Program Implementing Units in Tanzania," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 8(3), pages 303-312, September.
    18. Timothy Besley & Rohini Pande & Vijayendra Rao, 2012. "Just Rewards? Local Politics and Public Resource Allocation in South India," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 26(2), pages 191-216.
    19. Federico Maria Ferrara & Jörg S Haas & Andrew Peterson & Thomas Sattler, 2022. "Exports vs. Investment: How Public Discourse Shapes Support for External Imbalances," Post-Print hal-02569351, HAL.
    20. Ding, Mingfa, 2014. "Political Connections and Stock Liquidity: Political Network, Hierarchy and Intervention," Knut Wicksell Working Paper Series 2014/7, Lund University, Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies.

    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:sae:jodeso:v:27:y:2011:i:1:p:29-56. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.