Ghana: Traditional Leadership and Rural Local Governance chapter 4

THE EFFECTS OF TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP ON THE CONCEPTS OF THE STATE, SOVEREIGNTY, AND LEGITIMACY

The Ghanaian case suggests that the continuing presence of traditional authority or leadership during the colonial and post-colonial eras has arguably introduced new aspects for the operation of the concepts of the state, legitimacy, and sovereignty in Ghana and possibly other states of Africa. This has implications for rural (and even urban) local government in Ghana.

A canon is a set of expectations that a certain concept or theory is accepted by most people as being true, that it is part of the dominant world view and, therefore, is not to be challenged.¹ There is a canon that has come to be accepted, implicitly and/or explicitly, on what a state is amongst many researchers and policy practitioners. This canon of the state is commonly used to denote a set of political structures and processes directed ultimately by one political authority (be that an individual such as a king/sovereign or a body such as Parliament) that exercises control over all the people within its territorial boundaries. For example, Watkins defines the state in one of the voices of the canon, the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1968, 150), as being “a geographically delimited segment of human society united by common obedience to a sovereign.” A key point for the argument of this paper is that Watkins highlights the Western notion that an undivided supreme political authority or sovereign is key to the whole understanding of the state or government (in its broadest sense). He notes: “The state is a territory in which a single authority exercises sovereign powers both de jure (in law) and de facto (in life).” Watkins’ view of the state in this regard is not an isolated one. Indeed, it could be argued that virtually all the authors and approaches to the study of the state who are included in Chilcote’s outstanding encyclopedic 1994 survey of comparative politics, share this assumption about the state, even if they disagree on other aspects of state analysis.² However, as this chapter argues, this assumption needs to be revised with regard to the state in Ghana because of the continued presence of traditional authority there. In turn, this suggests that local government management and development in Ghana, and especially rural areas,³ needs to consist not only of state structures but also somehow include traditional leaders or chiefs. However, in order to better understand these aspects of the argument, it is useful to first consider the three main historic periods of the state in Ghana, i.e., pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial, as well as briefly outline the main governments or regimes of the post-colonial state.

For the present purpose, the state in what is now Ghana can be seen being manifested in three different forms that accord with three different historical periods during the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. While the Ghanaian state forms share many of the same characteristics as those of the canonical conceptualization of the state, they differ in several respects; most notably in terms of the effects of the imposition of colonialism on the factors of legitimacy and sovereignty. In turn, these effects have ramifications for the operation of both the colonial state and the post-colonial state. Of especial concern to this paper are the ramifications for local government.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a constellation of African states and other more decentralized political entities had long existed, and in some cases they could trace their existence and/or roots back several more centuries.⁴ Until the 1830s or 1840s, these African states and other political entities in what is now Ghana existed virtually free from European colonial control. European states had little control beyond the cannonballs shot from their castles, forts, and trading posts on the coast. These pre-colonial states experienced growth, ascendancy, hegemony, decline, and incorporation into other states in rather similar ways to that experienced by the European states. These pre-colonial states had their own structures and processes for exercising authority and carrying out various functions, including that of local government.

Britain had begun the process of imposing its claim to control, administer, and exercise sovereignty by the early mid-1800s. This process was carried out tentatively at first as in the Bond of 1844 which extended limited British judicial jurisdiction to some of the coastal states. After Britain’s defeat of the Asante state in 1874, Britain moved decisively by means of conquest or treaty to impose its colonial state over the political authorities who, in large measure, had run the pre-colonial states in what is now Ghana. In the main the British colonial state did not extinguish these political authorities, but rather transformed them from kings into chiefs, otherwise called traditional authorities or traditional leaders. The leaders of the former pre-colonial states and other political entities lost certain trappings of their states – such as their own armies and foreign policies – much of their control over their legislative, administrative, executive, and judicial powers, but they retained a significant if variable amount of their authority, legitimacy, influence, power, and even elements of sovereignty into the colonial and post-colonial periods.⁵ These chiefs or traditional leaders may have lost power at the national or state-level, but in many cases they have remained influential at the local and regional levels, especially in the rural areas. Hence, one of the major questions of local government policy that the colonial state and its successor post-colonial state have faced has been how, if at all, chiefs or traditional leaders should be incorporated into the new structures and processes of local government.

The British colonial state in Ghana was fundamentally transformed after 1951 when nationalist forces led by Kwame Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) shared power within the colonial state after the Nkrumah 1951 electoral victory. This sharing ended in 1957 when the British state handed over total colonial state control to Ghanaians who transformed this after independence into the Ghanaian post-colonial state. Despite the opposition of certain key traditional leaders to Nkrumah, he and subsequent regimes did not abolish chieftaincy.⁶ Rather, the governments of the post-colonial state, following the predecessors of the colonial state, have sought to find the optimum relationship with traditional authority, often by adjusting formally the governmental powers and authority that the post-colonial state believed it was granting to the traditional leaders. These adjustments were formally manifested through a variety of legislative and constitutional instruments ranging from ordinances and laws to constitutions. Also, the post-colonial state in Ghana has attempted in part to incorporate traditional leaders by creating the Houses of Chiefs system which operates from the national or state level through to the regions and localities.

In order to understand the legislative and constitutional context of the various post-colonial governments, it is necessary to list these governments. These governments generated the legislative and constitutional instruments that the state used in its attempts to control traditional leaders, including their participation in rural and urban local government. Prime minister and later President Kwame Nkrumah’s CPP rule included the dyarchy⁷ of the colonial period (1951–57) as well as his post-colonial governments (including the First Republic, 1960–66). He was overthrown in 1966 by the military-based National Liberation Council (NLC) which handed over power in 1969 to the Second Republic, which in turn lasted until it was overthrown by the military in 1972. A series of military-led governments, including the National Redemption Council (NRC, 1972–75), the Supreme Military Council (SMC, 1975–79), and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC, June–September, 1979) then ruled Ghana before handing over to the Third Republic (1979–81). It was overthrown by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC, 1982–93) which in turn handed over to the Fourth Republic (1993–present).⁸

Political legitimacy deals with the reasons that people are expected to obey political authority, especially that of government. As Foucault (1980), Connolly (1987), Baynes (1993), and others have noted, political legitimacy is an important mechanism of the state to obtain the compliance of its citizens (or subjects) with the laws (or other wishes) of the state. Force can be used by a state (or government) to compel obedience or compliance from its people, be they citizens or subjects, but in the long run this is often an expensive and even ineffective strategy for the state. Drawing upon the European experience, Foucault (1980) argued that the modern state relies much more on hegemonic legitimacy strategies to convince its people that they should willingly obey its laws. Thus, certain lines of argument or knowledge are encouraged by the state and others may not only be discouraged but even be suppressed, so that a certain legitimacy of the state is created by the agreement of people to rule and be ruled in certain ways under certain conditions. One might go further and argue that when the state’s canon of political legitimacy breaks down, riots, revolts, and revolutions begin. Thus, it would seem, at least in utilitarian terms, that the best interests of democratic government and people would be served if the political legitimacy of governments, including local government, could be expanded so as to create the conditions for democratic development. Such a political culture must be concerned with creating and enhancing the structures, processes, and values that promote both people and the various communities to which they see themselves belonging. Moreover, given the existence of political legitimacy roots going back to the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial periods, people today may see themselves belonging simultaneously to a community rooted in the newly independent state as well as belonging to another type of community, one rooted in traditional authority.

A key point in the discussion of democratic political legitimacy should be that people have the ability to give or withdraw their consent to be governed, and that governments and other governing and decision-making structures honour the decisions of the people.⁹ Agreement with this does not necessarily bind us to one universal application of democratic political legitimacy, to one particular set of structures or even processes. For example, while there is now broad agreement that multi-party elections at the level of national, central, or federal government are usually one of the expressions of democratic political legitimacy, these views are not shared by all democratic countries when it comes to local government. Some countries such as Canada and Ghana have opted for non-party elections for local government on either an informal basis (e.g., Canada) or on a formal basis (e.g., Ghana). Others such as the U.K. and South Africa have accepted multi-party local government elections. Such differences in political culture and the expression of political legitimacy are, in large measure then, differences of the history and cultural context for each of these countries, rather than any corruption of some mythical one true expression of democracy. Hence, while there can be a broad agreement on a core set of criteria by which the presence or absence of democracy can be determined (e.g., government legitimately elected, etc.), historical and cultural variations are possible in how that democracy (including political legitimacy) is expressed and experienced.

Democracy incorporates and accepts (indeed perhaps depends upon) diversity, difference, and plurality. This is a key point to recognize in this present analysis of traditional leadership and local government, because traditional leadership/traditional authority and the contemporary state now have different bases of legitimacy. These differences could be, and have been, interpreted as proof that traditional leadership/ authority is totally incompatible with contemporary democratic government. If such an argument were extended to local government, then the participation of traditional leadership in democratic local government could be seen as being undesirable. Such an argument, in my view, does not take into account the complexity and specific cultural context of a number of democratic post-colonial states in Africa and elsewhere. Any discussion of the desirability and possibility of the participation of traditional leadership/authority in democratic local government and governance, has first to examine these different bases of legitimacy.

Legitimacy can be based on different arguments (or logics), and these can vary over time¹⁰ between and within cultural and historical contexts. So for example, the legitimacy of the contemporary (or post-colonial) state in Africa derives primarily from three sources, all of which are secular: the nationalist struggle for independence; democracy; and constitutional legality.¹¹ Constitutional legality can derive from the post-colonial or colonial period in degrees that vary from state to state. In one sense, the contemporary African states are the successors to the colonial states created by the European imperialist powers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, just as the United States and Canada can be seen as post-colonial states to Great Britain’s colonies in North America. The post-colonial state inherited and has to deal in one way or another with a considerable amount of constitutional and legislative instruments from the colonial state period.¹² In this sense, at least in the initial period of independence, the post-colonial state is usually the successor to the colonial state. Much of the colonial state’s legislative and constitutional framework continues to influence that of the post-colonial state in either positive or negative ways. Thus, the post-colonial state demands obedience to those aspects of the colonial laws and constitutional framework that it deems acceptable because these are seen to be acceptable or legitimate in legal and/or constitutional terms.¹³ In short, whatever evaluation of the colonial state the post-colonial state might have, it may continue to accept a particular law or constitutional measure or principle on its own legal merit. Legality, thus, may be the legitimacy basis of the continued usage of a colonial measure, even if the colonial state period as a whole has reduced or no legitimacy in the eyes of the post-colonial state and its citizens because of the lack of democracy that imperial or colonial rule means.¹⁴ The post-colonial state also uses the legal system to legitimate its behaviour. Appeals by government are made to the citizenry to be “law-abiding.”

The post-colonial state could also appeal to democracy and the nationalist struggle for independence as two more primary-level bases of its legitimation. Of course, this assumes that the post-colonial state represents itself as the democratic result of the nationalist struggle for independence. This could be seen as a mechanism by which the post-colonial state distances itself from the essentially undemocratic past of the colonial state. Sometimes military coups and governments have shrunk the democratic legitimacy of the post-colonial state to only that of the achievement of independence and legality. However, where the democratic content of the post-colonial state has been preserved or re-invented, the post-colonial state is able to base its claims to legitimacy on having its government duly elected by their people.

All of these democratic claims by the post-colonial states are ultimately rooted in the concept and practice that the citizens really do have the ability to select and to change their governmental leaders through elections held at specified intervals. To expand on a point made earlier, while this particular conception is now widely held throughout much of the world as being the core meaning of democracy, there is considerable debate on how to put democracy into practice. Should the times between elections be fixed (e.g., every four years?) or flexible (e.g., no more than five years apart)? Which governmental leaders should be elected and which should be appointed: executive? legislative? judicial? administrative? or military? There are considerable differences amongst the democracies on these basic questions of democratic legitimation. Should traditional leaders be added to this list of categories of government leaders¹⁵ who might be elected in order to ensure their legitimacy in the contemporary democratic state including local government, or is there a legitimate case for chiefs not to be elected by every citizen?

A significant part of the answer to this question lies within the nature of the legitimacy of traditional authority. Two key points need to be made about the bases of the claims to political legitimacy by traditional leadership in the era of the post-colonial democratic state. First, such legitimacy claims by traditional leaders are in very large measure (if not entirely) different from those of the state itself. Second, the traditional leaders’ legitimacy potentially could be added to the legitimacy pool of the contemporary state, especially for matters of local governance and development. This is a point that was and/or has not been lost on a number of colonial and post-colonial states.

Traditional leaders have three distinct claims to legitimacy in the contemporary era. First, traditional leaders can claim to be the carriers of political authority and legitimacy that is derived from the pre-colonial period. Traditional leaders occupy structures supported by constitutions and laws¹⁶ that, while they may have changed in varying degrees by the colonial and post-colonial states, still retain a core of customary legitimacy that predates the imposition of colonialism. In other words, traditional leaders have a special historical claim to pre-colonial roots; i.e., the first period of African independence before it was lost to colonialism (primarily during the 1800s). Traditional leaders can point to the antiquity of their particular office and make the argument that since it was founded (either directly or indirectly through an office that was pre-colonial) in the pre-colonial period, their particular traditional authority represents those indigenous, truly African values and authority that existed before the changes imposed by the colonial system began to take effect.¹⁷

Such customary constitutions of traditional leadership may be seen as the constitutions of the grassroots, i.e., of the local-level rural and often urban people. These customary constitutions form part of rural and often urban local governance that people encounter as they grow up, perhaps even before they engage with the rural local government of the post-colonial state. Traditional leadership and its customary constitutions is the form of rural local governance in which the vast majority of rural Ghanaians are first politically socialised, and thus imbibe their first political values.

The second distinct claim to legitimacy by traditional leaders in the post-colonial democratic state is that based on religion. To be a traditional leader is to have one’s authority, one’s power legitimated by links to the divine, whether the sacred be a god, a spirit, or the ancestors. For a traditional leader to function, that office must maintain and demonstrate its link to the divine. In Africa, the divine basis of traditional legitimacy pre-dates the imposition of colonialism. This timing thereby reinforces the other distinct basis of legitimacy for traditional leaders. In much of Africa, these religious beliefs were established before the introduction of Islam and Christianity, but in some cases these later religions have been added to, or superseded, the earlier religious beliefs. If one distinguishes between states in which a religion is present as a system of belief and one in which the state has formally adopted the religion as part of its legitimacy, then there are few states in Africa that have state religions and, thus, the differences in the bases of legitimacy which were argued above hold. It should be added, that the absence or presence of any religion does not detract from the ability of a state to be democratic.

The third distinct claim to legitimacy by traditional leaders is that of pre-colonial-rooted culture. The historical and religious legitimacy claims¹⁸ can be interpreted as contributing to the view that traditional authority and leadership has deep roots in indigenous culture. Traditional leaders thus may be seen as the fathers and mothers of the people. Traditional leaders use regalia, dance, ceremony, music, cloth, etc., to display physically their cultural legitimacy. Traditional leaders may be recognized, as they are in Ghana, as very significant transmitters of culture by their peoples, themselves, and by the state.

There are thus, it is argued, two different sets of roots of legitimacy present within a contemporary post-colonial state such as Ghana. The legitimacy roots of the traditional authorities pre-date those of the colonial and post-colonial states and were not incorporated to any significant degree into the sovereignty claims of the colonial and post-colonial states. As will be seen in the next section, at best these states have been ambiguous as to what degree this differently-rooted legitimacy (and hence also sovereignty¹⁹) could or should be mobilized or co-opted in aid of the goals of the colonial and post-colonial states. It would appear that legitimacy, sovereignty, power, authority, and influence may be divided in post-colonial states containing traditional authorities. While the overwhelming share of sovereignty, power, and authority is held by the Ghanaian post-colonial state, traditional leaders hold (figuratively), significant amounts and types of legitimacy, authority, and influence. There has been perhaps some recognition in these states by their leaders that they are dealing with states having not just one ultimate source of sovereignty, but rather states which have two different-rooted, asymmetrical sources of sovereignty. If the two different sets of roots (i.e., sources of legitimacy) are seen as being capable of producing different genes or characteristics, then it is possible to conceive of the different roots producing a stronger, more productive tree. If rural local development is imagined to be a tree, then it needs a combination of rural local government and traditional leadership for a stronger rural local governance.

If legitimacy is not seen as a zero-sum, winner-take-all situation, then the different bases of legitimacy that the state and traditional leaders have need not be an obstacle to the achievement of development and democratization by rural local and central/national governments of African post-colonial states. Where there is little co-operation, little co-ordination, and little recognition of the differing bases of legitimacy between the local government of the state and traditional leaders, rural local government itself will carry out its policies and projects as best it can, often without all of the desired or even necessary resources. However, if there is a strategy of adding the legitimacy resources that traditional leaders have to those of the state’s rural local government, then it should be possible to mobilize more quickly the compliance, co-operation, and other resources of those people who are both citizens of the state and subjects of the traditional leader with local government. Of course, this strategy will only apply to people who believe in the legitimacy of the traditional leader. From a rural local government policy management perspective, the issue here is not whether people accept the legitimacy of local government, but rather how the addition of legitimacy resources from traditional leaders may increase the compliance and enthusiasm of people for legitimate development projects and policies, thereby increasing the capacity of rural local government in promoting development as well as increasing the cultural fit of democratic local government structures amongst the peoples of African states.

RURAL LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP UNDER THE COLONIAL STATE AND POST-COLONIAL STATE IN GHANA

In Ghana, the relationship between both the colonial and post-colonial states and traditional leadership with regard to rural local and other government has been uneasy and ambiguous, but it is one in which the state has expressed a constant political and policy interest since the imposition of colonialism, and again since independence. Four ways of measuring this rural local governance relationship will be used in this chapter. First, there is the recognition that traditional leadership formed a layer of government that the colonial state found in place and with which the post-colonial state then had to manage its relations. Thus the first issue, and a continuing issue at that, has been how first the colonial state and then the post-colonial state has attempted to regulate the exercise of authority and power by traditional leaders. The second and third measures concern local government administration and finance. Fourthly, the Houses of Chiefs system is the latest significant policy initiative of the Ghanaian post-colonial state to manage its relations with traditional leaders at the levels of rural and urban local government.

The underlying political canon of the state is revealed by legislative and constitutional instruments (ranging from ordinances to laws to constitutions): these represent formal manifestations of political power shifts. Thus, the analysis of legislative and constitutional instruments can, therefore, illuminate the dynamics of political relationships between both the colonial state and the post-colonial state and traditional leaders with regard to rural local governance.

The creation of the British colonial state in what is now Ghana was uneven and complex. Although there had been a European presence in southern Ghana from the late fifteenth century (an area known then as the Gold Coast), the process of British colonization did not seriously start until 1874. At that time a British Order in Council created the Gold Coast Colony.²⁰ In 1901, following a war with the Asante, the British formally extended northwards their colonial control of Ghana to what became known as the Ashanti Protectorate and the Northern Territories.²¹ In 1922, British administration of the area known as British Togoland was formally recognized by the League of Nations.²² Complete British colonial rule was maintained over these territories until a system of dyarchy (or joint rule) between the British colonial state and Kwame Nkrumah’s nationalist Convention People’s Party (CPP) was started in 1951. Britain formally withdrew in 1957, handing over its former colonial state to the Ghanaians who made it into a post-colonial state.

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR RURAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN GHANA

The overall pattern that is suggested by this analysis is that the control exerted by the state over traditional leaders in local government has varied, but that the state continues to find traditional leaders to be part of Ghana’s political reality. At different times both the colonial and post-colonial states have not only appeared to recognize the legitimacy of traditional leaders, but have also employed different strategies to mobilize or co-opt this legitimacy to aid in the achievement of their development goals. At other times, however, they have viewed the legitimacy of traditional leaders as a threat (to either their own sovereignty or public order) and have attempted to minimize (but never completely eliminate) the sovereignty and legitimacy of the pre-colonial rooted political entities.

What then are the policy implications? While the on-going relationship of the post-colonial state at the level of local government is one in which the state wishes to control traditional leadership, the state does not seem to wish to eliminate traditional leadership at the local level. This policy tension seems to reflect the need of the post-colonial state to accumulate more legitimacy resources, so that it can more effectively manage and develop at the local government level, by co-opting the different legitimacy resources of the traditional leadership. Indeed, these differently rooted legitimacy resources of the traditional leaders would seem to exist only as long as these are part of the traditional authority structures, and do not seem to be transferable to the post-colonial state. Without the presence of traditional leaders, their legitimacy resources cannot be present.

What are some practical strategies for mobilizing this legitimacy (or credibility) of traditional leadership in aid of the development and democratization efforts of local government? First, it is useful to distinguish between government and governance. Government can be considered to be composed of those formal constitutionally and legislatively designated structures, processes, and political culture (including legitimacy) of the state. Governance could be considered to be comprised of government plus those political activities and culture (including legitimacy) which may be technically outside the formal legislative and constitutional activities of the state, but which have effects on the activities of formal government. Such effects might be felt in the realms of development projects or the political culture of democracy. Governance, thus, could be said to include both the formal activities of the state as well as those unofficial activities and attitudes of the people living within the state. In short, we could talk of governance as the governing style of a country. These distinctions apply to all levels of governing in the state, including that of local government. We could see this distinction as actually expanding the field in which traditional leadership could play a role with regard to local government.

The first set of options focuses on those that involve traditional leaders with local government. Traditional leaders might be involved in the legislative or executive functions of local government. Reserved seats for traditional leaders in which executive or legislature might be apportioned on the basis of several mechanisms. Local, regional, provincial, or national government might appoint the traditional leaders to these local government bodies. Such positions could be filled by elections in traditional leadership forums such as the local equivalent of traditional councils, regional houses of chiefs, provincial houses of traditional leaders, national house of chiefs or national council of traditional leaders. Another selection method could be to have the traditional leaders elected to the reserved seats during the regular local government elections. Variations and combinations of the above selection techniques are, of course, also possible. A second general possibility with regard to traditional leadership participation in the legislative and executive bodies of local government, might be for individual traditional leaders to run as ordinary individual candidates in the regular local government elections. A third option in this regard would be to have traditional leaders take over these executive and legislative bodies of local government for their areas. The first two options of this set (i.e., reserved seats and traditional leader as individual candidate) represent two different versions of traditional leaders contributing their legitimacy to local government. The third option is likely to be strongly opposed on practical administrative grounds, but especially on the basis of arguments for democracy, given the emergence of the democratic state which demands that all levels of its government conform on the whole to the core value of universally-elected governments. This question needs to be debated more extensively, but it may be undesirable for the interests of traditional leaders since such an option might well create a backlash against traditional leaders, including calls for the abolishment of traditional leadership.

Traditional leaders could be allocated seats for administrative or supervisory functions of local government. This is the case in Ghana for a number of regional bodies such as the regional commissions, committees and councils for lands, prisons, police, and regional co-ordination.

Traditional leaders could also serve on advisory bodies of local government such as joint committees of local government; traditional leaders that focus on specific policies. Such policy areas could include (or have included) the environment (e.g., sacred groves, forests, rivers, etc.), health (e.g., anti-HIV/AIDS campaigns, child vaccination campaigns), social practice (e.g., funerals, etc.), gender (e.g., the role of queenmothers and other female chiefs, or even male chiefs, in dealing with gender questions, women and development, or gender roles), fund-raising for education, health, and other development projects, etc. Local government could establish new citizen participation bodies that focus on traditional leaders, or else expand existing ones to include traditional leaders.

There are of course quite a range of possibilities in terms of the second option, the involvement of traditional leaders in local governance. Traditional leaders could be involved informally in individual development programs, policies, and projects organized by local government, communities, and non-governmental organizations.

Where appropriate, this participation could be more formalized. Customary values could be mobilized by traditional leaders in support of development, as in Zimbabwean reforestation (Daneel 1996). Traditional leaders themselves could organize development projects. Traditional leaders could mobilize customary values to endorse and participate in civic education programs in support of democratic values and citizen participation in elections for local and other levels of government. Traditional leaders could organize meetings of their subjects, as with the kgotlas in Botswana, to discuss local government and other development projects and policies.

There needs to be active (and where necessary pre-emptive) measures by traditional leaders to resolve customary disputes in their own individual customary jurisdictions so as to maintain social, economic, political, and customary justice as well as local community peace, order, and good government; all of the above being necessary for development activities to take place in their localities. However, where and when customary disputes in one traditional leadership jurisdiction cannot or have not been solved to the satisfaction of all involved, or involve more than one traditional leadership jurisdiction, then traditional leadership conflict resolution mechanisms of the state such as Traditional Councils at the sub-district/district level, or Regional Houses of Chiefs and Provincial Houses of Traditional Leaders at the regional/provincial level, or even the National House of Chiefs or National Council of Traditional Leaders at the national level need to be in place and have the operational capability (e.g., judicial committees of the houses of chiefs), the constitutional and legal authority to operate, the political will to act, the legal and administrative support of the local, regional, and national governments to enforce legitimate decisions, as well as the necessary resources of staff, transportation, communication, and other funding necessary to carry out their responsibilities. Thus, the relationship between traditional leaders and local, regional, and national government is interactive: traditional leaders can legitimate the state by acting on behalf of the state objectives of development and democratization, while the state sets the terms of traditional leaders’ legitimacy in the contemporary era and also provides new frameworks and resources within which traditional leadership can operate.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC).

This research was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Ottawa, Canada.

Grants from the University of Calgary’s University Research Grants Committee (URGC) contributed to the awarding of the SSHRCC and IDRC grants.

I would like to acknowledge gratefully the contributions of Laura Durham (Canada), Meghan Dalrymple (Canada) and Morgan Nyendu (Ghana) who were my research assistants and graduate students. I would also like to thank my academic colleagues in Ghana as well as the tradtional leaders, state leaders and people of Ghana for their help, kindness and friendship. I would also like to thank Peter and Ama Shinnie who persuaded me to go to Ghana and who have been such a constant source of advice, help and friendship.

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NOTES

• 1.I am grateful to Professor Valerie Haines for sharing with me her work on the sociology of canons during our time as annual fellows at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities in 2000–2001.
• 2.For further discussion of this point, see Ray 1998.
• 3.Chiefs in Ghana are based in villages, towns and cities, each with its attached rural area. Chiefs are organized into hierarchies (most of them based on the pre-colonial situation) which incorporate sub-sets of urban and rural areas.
• 4.The history, structure, and nature of these pre-colonial states are increasingly well documented. See, for example, the following: Amenumey 1986; Asamoa 1986; Boahen 1987; Boahen, Ajayi and Tidy 1986; Fynn 1971; Kwamena-Poh 1972; McCaskie 1995; Shinnie and Shinnie 1995; Ward 1948; Wilks 1989. For a useful overview using maps, see Catchpole and Akinjogbin 1983.
• 5.For a summary of this process, see Ray 1998, 49–50.
• 6.See Andoh 1987; Arhin 1991; Rathbone 2000.
• 7.The dyarchy was a transitional period from the colonial state to the post-colonial state.
• 8.For a variety of analyses of these governments, see Apter 1968; Austin 1964; Austin and Luckham 1975; Chazan 1983; Ninsin 1985; Ninsin and Drah 1981; Nugent 1995; Oquaye 1980; and Ray 1986.
• 9.These democratic values should be examined within national and local government as well as a variety of other structures, including traditional authorities and such civil society organizations as religious organizations and community associations.
• 10.See, for example, Baynes 1993 or Connolly 1987.
• 11.Arguably, there are religious and monarchical/estate exceptions, but overall this pattern would seem to be present.
• 12.See Ray 1996 for an elaboration of this argument. The degree to which the post-colonial state accepts this inheritance over time is another question.
• 13.For example, the written constitution of Canada was initially derived, in large measure, from the British North America Act of 1867 that was passed by the British Parliament.
• 14.By definition, since colonial rule means government by an external force, the wishes of the people are not necessarily (or even usually) followed by the imposed government.
• 15.The question of whether chiefs belong to the state or civil society needs to be addressed with respect to what is meant by government leaders.
• 16.The fact that these laws and constitutions may or may not have been written does not detract from their legal, historical, cultural, or intellectual validity. It is worthwhile noting that countries like Britain and Canada have had custom and convention as a considerable part of their constitutions.
• 17.The historic cultural and religious claims to legitimacy by traditional leaders in the era of democratic, post-colonial states are subject to the overriding principle of consent of the people to these claims. If people do not agree to be bound by these claims, there seems little that traditional leaders (or the state) can or should do to demand that they be honoured in special ways.
• 18.In turn, these claims may provide the basis for traditional leaders to make legalistic claims to legitimacy within the post-colonial state, as also sometimes happened during the colonial period.
• 19.See Ray 1996 for an elaboration of this argument, especially the linkage between legitimacy and sovereignty.
• 20.United Kingdom, 6 August 1874. “Order in Council for determining the mode of exercising the power and jurisdiction acquired by Her Majesty within divers countries on the West Coast of Africa near or adjacent to Her Majesty’s Gold Coast Colony” in Metcalfe 1964, 368–69.
• 21.United Kingdom, 26 September 1901. “Ashanti Order of His Majesty the King in Council” Gold Coast Government Gazette, 1 January 1902 in Metcalfe 1964, 521–23; United Kingdom, 26 September 1901. “Northern Territories Order of His Majesty the King in Council” Gold Coast Government Gazette, 1 January 1902 in Metcalfe 1964, 523–24.
• 22.League of Nations, Mandates Section, 20 July 1922. British Mandates for the Cameroon, Togoland and East Africa” London in Metcalfe 1964, 590–92.
• 23.The difficulties of identity terminology need to be recognized here, especially in the transition from the African pre-colonial period with its various types of leaders, including kings, to the colonial state which downplayed their titles and transformed kings into chiefs. Indeed, this is the English-language term now commonly used by Ghanaians of all social ranks and by the Ghanaian state’s constitution when referring to one or more traditional leaders. For a further discussion of the political uses of terminology, see, for example, Arhin 1985; Ray and LaBranche 1998.
• 24.Metcalfe notes that this ordinance was not implemented (1964, 390).
• 25.See, for example, the Earl of Kimberley’s letter to Governor Ussher, 19 November 1880 in Metcalfe 1964, 402.
• 26.Ibid.
• 27.See, for example, the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti (Legislative Council) which was in Order in Council, 1946 and the Gold Coast (Constitution) Order in Council, 1950. Both measures were colonial constructions.
• 28.1951 Local Government (Gold Coast) Ordinance; Gold Coast, 27 March 1952, “The State Councils (Ashanti) Ordinance, No. 4 of 1952”; Gold Coast, 1952, “The State Councils (Colony and Southern Togoland) Ordinance, No. 3 of 1952”; Gold Coast, 14 December 1955, “The State Councils (Ashanti) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 38 of 1955”; Gold Coast, 7 February 1957, “The State Councils (Ashanti) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 3 of 1957”; Gold Coast, 1 March 1957, “The State Councils (Colony and Southern Togoland) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 8 of 1957.”
• 29.The Houses of Chiefs are discussed below in their own section.
• 30.The Judicial Commissioner was eventually replaced by the judicial committees of the National House of Chiefs and the Regional Houses of Chiefs. The Traditional Council is the grassroots level of the Houses of Chiefs system. See the Houses of Chiefs system section below.
• 31.Native States were the government units of traditional leadership in the colonial period that later became the Traditional Councils whose presidents were usually paramount chiefs. See below section on the Houses of Chiefs.
• 32.See Governor Freelings letter to the Earl of Carnarvon, 10 February 1877 in Metcalfe 1964, 387.
• 33.See Nkrumah 1957 (esp. p. 120); Rathbone 2000, 22–23.
• 34.1951 Local Government (Gold Coast) Ordinance, Gold Coast, 27 March 1952; “The State Councils (Ashanti) Ordinance, No. 4 of 1952”; Gold Coast, 1952, “The State Councils (Colony and Southern Togoland) Ordinance, No. 3 of 1952”; Gold Coast, 14 December 1955, “The State Councils (Ashanti) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 38 of 1955”; Gold Coast, 7 February 1957, “The State Councils (Ashanti) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 3 of 1957”; Gold Coast, 1 March 1957, “The State Councils (Colony and Southern Togoland) (Amendment) Ordinance, No. 8 of 1957”; Municipal Councils (Amendment) Ordinance (No. 2) of 1957; Nsarkoh 1964: 5–6.
• 35.See the Houses of Chiefs section below.
• 36.Local Administration (Amendment) Decree (NRCD 138) (1972), cited by Ayee, 22, 54, 91; Local Administration (Amendment) Decree (NRCD 258) (1974), cited by Ayee, 22, 54, 92; Local Government (Amendment) Decree (SMDC 194 of 1978), cited by Ayee, 54.
• 37.Rawlings was also elected President of the Fourth Republic in 1992 and 1996. He had also been Chairman of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council from 4 June to 24 September 1979. He was thus head of the post-colonial state of Ghana from June–September 1979, and 31 December 1981 to 7 January 2001.
• 38.Ray, 1986; Ayee, 113–14 and PNDC Law 14 (June 1982), cited by Ayee, 109.
• 39.See, for example, the following ordinances: 1931 Native Administration Amendment Ordinance (Gold Coast Colony), 1939 Native Administration Treasuries Ordinance (Gold Coast Colony); 1932 Native Treasuries Ordinance (Northern Territories and Northern Section of Togoland). Similar measures were applied in the Ashanti Protectorate, Hailey 1938, 346, 472–75.
• 40.See also, for example, the 1958 Ashanti Stool Lands Act, 1961 Local Government Act, the 1971 Chieftaincy Act, the regulations, etc., transforming such stool land revenues to the District Assemblies in 1988 as well as the Fourth Republic’s 1992 constitution.
• 41.This is analyzed in the next section.
• 42.In a few Traditional Councils, the presidency rotates amongst the paramount chiefs (if there are several) or amongst the divisional chiefs.
• 43.In southern Ghana (which was formerly heavily forested), special wooden seats called stools are part of the regalia. This forms the physical manifestation of a chieftaincy’s legitimacy. Similarly, in northern Ghana, which is a cattle-raising area, each new chief sits on a cattle hide or skin. Hence, since land is seen as being attached to a full-fledged chieftaincy, the terms skin land or stool land mean land attached to a chieftaincy.
• 44.Woodman (1988) has a very perceptive analysis of what happens to customary law when it is codified and brought under state law.
• 45.Interview Commissioner Patricia D. Matenge, Customary Courts Commissioner, Tribal Administration Department, Ministry of Local Government, Lands and Housing, Gaberone, Botswana, 26 September 1997. See also Sharma 1999.
• 46.This is the outreach arm of the German Christian Democratic Party, which has had a longstanding interest in traditional authority in Africa.
• 47.In much of Ghana, funerals are complex, expensive ceremonies that take place over considerable periods of time and involve large gatherings of family, friends, and dignitaries. Funerals are seen as important statements of the achievements and worth of the deceased and their families. Much prestige is at stake.
• 48.Interview with Justice Emile Short, Commissioner for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Kumasi, 28 June 2000.