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Key Text Pulling Back from the Brink: Ghana's Experience

Author: E Hutchful
Date: 2003
Size: 22 pages

Summary

How did Ghana pull itself back from the brink of conflict? What lessons about conflict transformation may be learned from this experience? In answering these questions this chapter from the book Governing Insecurity provides a detailed understanding of the character of the Ghanaian crisis, which sheds light on current conflict prevention policy frameworks.

In spite of the fact that studies of conflict have become an academic growth industry, and despite the adoption of conflict prevention policy frameworks by major donors, rather less analytical attention has been paid to African countries that have succeeded in reversing conflict trends and restoring a form of social peace. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ghana had many attributes that suggested a potential for violent conflict: a collapsing state, characterised by a crisis of legitimacy and shrinking economic and institutional capacity; a severe economic crisis; massive out-migration and the militarisation of the state and politics with an increasing loss of control of the institutional instruments of violence. There was the prospect of national disintegration. Yet, barely a decade later, Ghana had shed its image as the failing country of Africa. Economic viability and political order had been restored, state institutions reconstructed, and a functioning democracy forged and tested through two peaceful elections. Ghana’s example helps to demonstrate that conflict trends are not irreversible. A close analysis of the Ghanaian situation reveals:

An intimate connection between security and development, involving ongoing consultation between development policy makers and security practitioners as well as closely articulated development and security concerns.
A new incorporative strategy, based on realignment between the state and the market, emerged.
The peaceful and successful transfer of power in the December 2000 elections suggests that democracy may be on its way to consolidation in Ghana.
However, the Ghanaian economy has deteriorated in recent years, as has the quality of policy coherence and implementation. Corruption has returned.
The injections of foreign aid that subsidised the reconstruction of the Ghanaian state and its economy have begun to dry up, precipitating a renewed round of deficits.
Low-level violence is becoming endemic.

The consolidation of democracy in Ghana will depend on how these continuing challenges are handled. Nontheless, the Ghanaian example suggests that it is possible to pull back from the brink of conflict.

Centrally important are: responsive governance, focused reform, economic growth and the relationship between security and development.
The quality of political leadership in reversing conflict trends is also important. However, the role of political leaders may necessarily be limited as well as contradictory and self-serving.
Strong social networks and a vibrant civil society are vital, both for conflict resolution and democratic accountability.
The ability of all social and political actors to learn from historical experience is important, particularly regarding dangers of poor governance and unrestrained conflict.
The pathway away from conflict may be far from formulaic or straightforward and by no means free from new vulnerabilities.

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Source: Hutchful, E., 2003, 'Pulling Back from the Brink: Ghana’s Experience' in Governing Insecurity Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments in Transitional Democracies, Cawthra, G. and Luckham, R. (eds), Zed Books, London.