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Abstract
This article examines how the Jerry Rawlings military government, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) in Ghana, framed its political agenda using liberal tropes about participatory democracy as a strategy to manufacture legitimacy and mediate political-economic crisis. The People’s Defence Committees (PDCs) and Workers’ Defence Committees (WDCs), created in 1981 and dissolved in 1984, were presented by the PNDC as innovative programmes aimed at nurturing citizen participation representative of the highest form of democracy. However, the introduction of these reforms came at a time when the ruling PNDC faced critical problems of legitimacy, administrative incapability and popular opposition to austerity measures associated with structural adjustment programs (SAPs). We utilise primary source material from the University of Ghana National Reconciliation Commission collection to argue that the discourses and practice of the PDCs/WDCs functioned simultaneously to violently consolidate state power, depoliticise alternatives, and manufacture legitimacy to mediate political-economic crisis while simultaneously being a vehicle for illegitimacy by providing constrained opportunities for individual nepotism, grassroots empowerment and claim-making against the state.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Hayward and Dumbuya, “Political Legitimacy,” 648.
2 Wamba dia Wamba, “Discourse of the National Question,” 57–69.
3 Jenson and Kposowa, “African Military Coups” and Hippler, Nation-Building.
4 Nyong’o, Struggles for Democracy.
5 Ibid., 650.
6 Englebert, State Legitimacy, 173.
7 Linz and Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Atiku-Abubakar and Shaw-Taylor, “Weak States in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
8 Crook, “Power in Ghana.”
9 Ibid.
10 Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Coloniality of Power and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “Genealogies of Coloniality.”
11 Bagayoko et al., “Legitimate Public Authority.”
12 Scheye, “Pragmatic Realism in Justice and Security Development,” 5.
13 Owusu, “Culture and Democracy in West Africa”; see also Owusu, Uses and Abuses of Political Power.
14 Owusu, “Democracy and Africa,” 373.
15 Owusu, “Rebellion, Revolution, and Tradition,” 376.
16 Oquaye, Politics in Ghana, 1982–1992.
17 Nugent, Big Men, Small Boys, 15.
18 Ibid., 264.
19 Haynes, “Democracy in Ghana,” 408.
20 Ibid., 424.
21 Jeffries, “Democratization in Ghana,” 10.
22 Adam, “Fanon as a Democratic Theorist,” 515.
23 Bohrer, Pacek, and Radcliff, “Electoral Participation, Ideology, and Party Politics”; Agarin, “Introduction to the Special Issue.”
24 Schulz and Adams, Political Participation in Communist Systems.
25 Gaynor, “Between Citizenship and Clientship.”
26 Saha, “Reducing Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
27 Gordon, Transformation and Trouble; Lamenski, “Unequal Citizenship in Unequal Cities.”
28 Bell and O’Rourke, “The People’s Peace?”; Picard and Mogale, Limits of Democratic Governance in South Africa.
29 Hasselskog, “Rwandan ‘Home Grown Initiatives.’”
30 Brooks, “Mass Movement and Public Policy,” 105–8.
31 Ibid., 120–5.
32 McBride, “Democratic Ownership and Deliberative Participation,” 113.
33 Froissart, “Ambiguities between Contention and Political Participation”; Hooghe and Quintelier, “Political Participation in European Countries”; Burt, Political Violence and the Authoritarian State.
34 Lapegna, “The Problem with Cooptation,” 9.
35 Cooke and Kothari, Participation: The New Tyranny?, 7.
36 Ibid., 13.
37 Mosse, “People’s Knowledge, Participation, and Patronage,” 17, 29–32.
38 Report of the NRC, “Statistics,” 157.
39 Report of the NRC, “Media and Human Rights,” 178.
40 For a discussion about the political context of the NRC see Asare, Truth without Reconciliation.
41 Rawlings, “New Year’s Address.”
42 Ibid.
43 Pinkney, Democracy and Dictatorship in Ghana and Tanzania, 45.
44 Ayee, “Local Government, Decentralization and State Capacity,” 47.
45 June 4th Movement, Workers Banner.
46 Ibid, Emphasis added.
47 Ibid.
48 Yeebo, “Ghana: Defence Committees and Class Struggle.”
49 Agyeman-Duah, “Ghana, 1982–6,” 641.
50 Yeebo, “Ghana: Defence Committees and Class Struggle,” 66–8.
51 Ibid., 66.
52 PNDC, “Initial Proclamation.”
53 PNDC, “Guidelines for PDCs and WDCs,” 1983.
54 Agyeman-Duah, “Ghana, 1982–6,” 641.
55 Kraus, “Political Party Failures and Political Responses,” 487.
56 Amnesty International, Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Republic of Ghana.
57 Yeebo, “Ghana: Defence Committees and Class Struggle.”
58 Amnesty International, Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Republic of Ghana.
59 Kraus, “Political Party Failures and Political Responses”; Hutchful, Ghana’s Adjustment Experience.
60 Hutchful, Ghana’s Adjustment Experience.
61 Owoo and Page, “Industrial Policy in Ghana,” 178.
62 Gupte, “In Ghana, Little Zeal for New Regime” and Gupte, “Rawlings Tightens His Grip on Ghana after Coup.”
63 CIA Records Collection, “Ghana: Rawlings Takes Charge Again.”
64 Boafo-Arthur, “Ghana: Structural Adjustment.”
65 Atibil, “Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization.”
66 Gyimah-Boadi and Rothchild, “Rawlings, Populism, and the Civil Liberties Tradition,” 64.
67 New African, “Ghana: Confessions of a Tribunal Chairman,” 297.
68 Amnesty International, Amnesty International’s Concerns in the Republic of Ghana.
69 Report of the NRC, “Security Services,” 65.
70 Ibid., 57.
71 File No. 0004, Ms. Juliana Dogbey, Accra Petition to the NRC.
72 Ibid.
73 Asare, Truth without Reconciliation.
74 Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Ghana, 2.
75 Report of the NRC, “Professional Bodies,” 276.
76 Data collected from the Report of the NRC.
77 Report of the NRC, “Statistics,” 157.
78 Ibid., 159–64.
79 Ibid., 157.
80 Report of the NRC, “State Institutions and Civil Society,” 73.
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid., 73–4.
83 PNDC, “Guidelines for PDCs and WDCs,” 1983.
84 Brenya et al., “Rawlings Factor in Ghana’s Politics.”
85 Yeebo, “Ghana: Defence Committees and Class Struggle”; Adedeji, “Legacy of J. J. Rawlings in Ghanaian Politics.”
86 Konings, “The State and the Defence Committees,” 282–3.
87 Ibid., 16.
88 Hutchful, “New Elements in Militarism,” 819; Sandbrook, Politics of Africa’s Economic Recovery, 128.
89 Sandbrook, Politics of Africa’s Economic Recovery, 128.
90 Report of the NRC, “The Student Movements,” 358.
91 Crook, “Rawlings’ Ghana,” 117.