Suchergebnisse

Abstract: Tolerance for presidential misrule and indefinite presidential tenure may have worn thin in Africa's democratizing polities, but with voters still caring most about beating the twin scourges of underdevelopment and economic marginalization, belief in the beneficent uses of preponderant executive power continues to run strong. African polities must move beyond the fixation with "strong" leadership and focus instead on building credible and effective institutions at both the national and local levels. If anything, an imperial presidency magnifies the costs of having an incompetent or bad leader at the helm.

Africa's natural resource-rich countries tend to combine mismanagement of their "windfall" with poor record of democratic governance. However, for Ghana, which has recently become an oil producer, the prospect of escaping the "resource curse" is decent – largely on account of its current status as an electoral democracy. While the prevailing democratic political environment has contributed positively to the crafting of policy governing the new oil sector, and legislation and nascent institutions partially justify such optimism, severe deficiencies in contemporary Ghanaian politics, together with the new resource's aggravation of the country's patronage-fuelled democracy and acrimonious political competition, give cause for caution.