Between elite reflexes and deliberative impulses: oil and the landscape of contentious politics in Ghana

ABSTRACT

From the vested interests that have held back the promulgation of Nigeria’s petroleum industry for more than 17 years, to the sporadic stoppages that often frustrate attempts by the Kenyan government and Tullow Oil to truck oil from the Turkana region; grand schemes for  petroleum resources often get entangled in a complex web of contentious politics. Nonetheless, the basic instinct of the predominant literature on oil governance has been to confine these contentious processes to the ‘black box’ of elite consolidation. Based on an in-depth account of the distinctive political economy drivers of reform in Ghana’s oil industry and the complement of Abdul Raufu Mustapha’s interpretation of the ‘multiple publics’ governing Africa’s public sphere, this article offers a pushback against this dominant narrative. It argues that the constitutive processes that drive institutional and policy reform reflect the impulses of contentious politics, instead of elite reflexes.

KEYWORDS:

• Abdul Raufu Mustapha
• oil politics
• public sphere
• scaling democracy
• natural resources
• repertoires
• stakeholder capitalism
• elites
• collective action

Acknowledgment

I am extremely grateful for constructive feedback received from my anonymous peers who reviewed this manuscript. I am also indebted to Professor Jon Kraus, who kindly offered invaluable reviews for early drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The government’s position contained a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed by the Government of Ghana and the Kingdom of Norway after the National Oil for Development Conference in 2008. The memorandum entailed a series of commitments by the Norwegian Government towards the establishment of a comprehensive national oil and gas policy strategy for Ghana, without any mention of citizens oversight (see Government of Ghana & Kingdom of Norway, 2008).

2. The Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands is a statutory body that is mandated to collect and disburse revenues deriving from customary lands in Ghana. The country’s mining regime, the Office receives all ground rents related to stool lands and manages disbursements to stools in mining communities.

3. During fieldwork, the actual number of dismissed staffs was not given, but a leading member of the NPP government, who oversaw the restructuring of the GNPC during an interview put the reduction at 150 from a high of about 1000 (interview, 2013).

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Nelson Oppong

Nelson Oppong is a lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the University of Edinburgh. His research is devoted to the politics of natural resources, institutional reform, state building and related global processes in low-income countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific regions.