Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana

Driscoll’s book seeks to investigate how electoral political competition shapes local government in Ghana, with a focus on systems of political patronage. Combining ethnographic methods and a remarkable data set of surveys of district officials, he finds that the main demand for patronage comes from the political parties and their local representatives who want to be rewarded for their efforts during the campaign. That patronage likely includes the dispensing of jobs, procurement contracts, land titles, and licenses. Local officials are under tremendous pressure to respond to these demands; Driscoll finds that the more competitive the district, the higher the levels of patronage necessary. He argues, optimistically, that these higher levels of patronage do not result in a decline in administrative performance. His research shows that local officials in Ghana are better trained than they used to be, are often politically neutral, and seem primarily motivated by policy implementation rather than by party politics.