Chieftaincy‐state relations: making political legitimacy in Ghana’s fourth republic
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Date
2011Author
Dzivenu, Setriakor
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Abstract
This thesis examines the role of chiefs and chieftaincy in Ghana’s Fourth
Republic. It focuses on the interactions between chieftaincy, the state
apparatus and society in areas of local government, land administration and
democratic politics, using Hohoe and Kumasi as case studies. The central
objective is to explore the legitimation processes of chiefs and chieftaincy,
especially how chiefs in both areas seek to assert authority with respect to the
state and society. By taking a closer look at how chiefs negotiate the modern
political order, this research takes a position between those who see
chieftaincy as an indigenous institution deserving recognition and
protection, and those who view it as incompatible with the modern political
dispensation. The research describes how a network of legal and informal
strategies has influenced the ways in which state and chiefs interact. By
focusing on this interaction, the thesis also reveals the on‐going legitimation
processes at the local and national levels in Ghana with respect to chiefs and
chieftaincy. The thesis reveals that even though both state actors and chiefs
want, and are constitutionally obliged, to exercise political control in certain
distinct ways, the reality is that neither is able to do so completely. To remain
relevant, both the state and chieftaincy asserted a hybrid authority in their
relation with society, thereby blurring the boundaries between their primary
identities. Thus rather than establishing a ‘bifurcated state’, these processes
revealed a ‘syncretic’ authority relations overlapping in ways that blend
political norms, processes and rules associated with each.