Ghana, the first sub-Saharan African country to achieve independence after World War II, has experienced several diverse forms of government, including a Westminster-style parliamentary democracy, a socialist single-party republic, and two military regimes following coups d'etat in 1966 and 1972. Like most of the developing states of West Africa, Ghana has been plagued by post-independence political instability. In fact, the search for a permanent and viable solution to what appears almost as a persistent governmental crisis—a crisis of political legitimacy, of credibility, confidence and trust in existing political institutions—seems to be the dominant public preoccupation in most West African nations today.

In a recent, perceptive review of three major works on contemporary Ghanaian politics, Paul Ladouceur concludes that “the ‘political kingdom’ has come to mean, not to govern, or to govern wisely, but rather to win by election or by a coup. Ghana has entered a period of political stagnation parallel to the economic stagnation of the last decade or two. Hopefully it will nonetheless find its way to a representative and a stable form of government, perhaps different from what it might be expected” (1977: 348) [emphasis added].

Toward the end of 1976 the ruling Supreme Military Council (SMC) headed by General I. K. Acheampong initiated an historic proposal for a Union Government, a plan designed to provide a real solution to Ghana's quest for a stable and representative government.

On 6 June 1975, 46 countries, 37 African, 6 Caribbean, and 3 Pacific signed the Georgetown Agreement establishing the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). This agreement represents the culmination of months of cooperation and coordination among these countries in their negotiations to establish a new model of economic cooperation between themselves and the European Economic Community (EEC). Whatever the merits or demerits of the Lome Convention in specific economic, political, and institutional terms, there is general agreement that the protracted negotiations provided an opportunity for the 46 countries to forge links that have had and will continue to have far reaching implications for the efforts at mutual cooperation and effective action between Third World countries, particularly between those in Africa and the Caribbean, on the international scene. Isebill V. Gruhn (1976: 241) has suggested that:

To the extent that the emergence of the ACP is regarded as one of the most important outcomes of the Lome negotiations, the available evidence tends to support that interpretation.

The ACP marks a significant milestone in the years of endeavor to establish an institutional framework for Afro/Caribbean collaboration in international relations. It has long been accepted that on several of the major issues confronting the international community such as imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism, apartheid, and the restructuring of the international system, Africa and Caribbean have had similar interests. While these interests have been articulated by the various states at different international meetings, they have lacked an institutional arrangement for their harmonization and joint orchestration.

A sense of well-being has been associated in the literature with a wide variety of political phenomena, attitudes, and behavior including stability (Gurr, 1970: 148-54), optimism about future development (Gallup, 1976), satisfaction with government (Hayward, 1974: 184-85), political power (Owusu, 1970: 325-31), and participation (Ross, 1975: 119). Low levels of well-being have been associated with conflict and instability (Gurr, 1970: ch. 2), hostility toward government (Templeton, 1966), and cynicism (Schatzberg, 1977: ch. 4). This paper explores the relationship between sense of well-being and a number of such political phenomena in Ghana in 1970 and 1975. Although there is a sizeable literature on well-being in western nations, there has been very little research on this subject elsewhere. Most of what we know or think is known about well-being and politics in Africa is based on extrapolations from studies of western political systems or on conventional wisdom about the role of well-being in African politics. This study is designed to investigate well-being as perceived by the individual in Ghana. The distribution of perceptions of well-being within the sample population will be looked at, views about the relationship of national government to well-being will be explored, and its relationship to political attitudes, attachments, behavior, and evaluation of government will be examined.

The study is based on two systematic surveys carried out by the author in 1970 and 1975 in six Ghanaian communities (see Appendix for description of the sample). The two surveys are based on random samples carried out in the same sample areas. Although this was not a national survey, a number of characteristics of the sample populations approximate that shown in the national census allowing cautious speculation about the Ghanaian populace. The major focus of this paper is on change over time and in this sense the data are comparable, randomly selected, and based on identical interview schedules (with a few exceptions which are noted). This is, sadly, one of the few cases of replication and of longitudinal analysis in Africa.

The link between resource scarcity and group demands is apparent to many observers. Thus, David Easton (1957: 387) remarks: “The reason why a political system emerges in a society at all … is that demands are being made by persons or groups in the society that cannot all be fully satisfied. In all societies one fact dominates political life: scarcity prevails with regard to most of the valued things.” In modern Ghana, not only are desired resources in short supply generally, but the inherited subregional inequalities add a further dimension to collective demands for the allocation of goods and services by central government authorities. Longstanding subregional inequalities in amenities and services heighten and complicate competition over scarce resources. The resulting demands on the part of the relatively disadvantaged subregions therefore emerge as a dynamic aspect in the process of determining public policy.

Ten years after the exile of Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, Ghanaians find themselves celebrating a renaissance of Nkrumahism. This is happening after flirtations with two military regimes, an intervening civilian regime, and a current interest in constructing a future Union Government allowing for more political participation by including more civilian groups into the decisional process. There are few programmatic indications that Nkrumah's notions of “scientific socialism” have been incorporated by recent regimes. Yet Nkrumah himself is revered as a hero in Ghanaian culture.

For ten years following Ghana's independence in 1957, Ghanaians were subject to Nkrumah's prolific verbal output concerning “scientific socialism,” consciencism, and Pan-Africanism. The meanings attached to these concepts by Nkrumah, and by his followers, however, remain somewhat ambiguous. This ambiguity is understandable given the fact that Nkrumah's often contradictory writings on the subject of socialism were devoid of the rigor which scholars often associate with the ideology. As derived from Engels, socialism is scientific in the sense that there are laws of history which move the proletariat to challenge the bourgeois order and instigate a successful revolution. Moreover, the forces of production and distribution should ultimately rest with the state which orders the economy in such a way that the profits of industrial enterprise are reinvested in state enterprises, and do not accrue to individuals.

One of the stated aims of the coup of 13 January 1972 was the restoration of a consultative democracy responsive to the needs of the people of Ghana. Thus the NRC (and later the SMC) government led by Colonel (now General) I. K. Acheampong from its inception was committed to a return to some form of democratic government at an unspecified future date. Demands for a return to civilian government started being voiced again in 1974 when it became apparent that, despite its initial appearance of decisive action (particularly in the matter of foreign debts), the NRC government was no more able to solve pressing economic problems than any other post-independence government had been. In the face of demands from the professional sector that civilian rule be restored by 1 July 1977, in January 1977, General Acheampong established a council to discuss what form a new civilian government should take. On 1 July 1977, faced with a strike by several professional groups, General Acheampong pledged to return Ghana to civilian rule on 1 July 1979, the format of civilian government to be determined on the basis of a referendum fixed for 30 March 1978, to be followed by a constitutional commission that would work out the details of the constitutional form chosen by the people in the referendum.

It hardly came as a surprise that Ghana's Supreme Military Council obtained, or at least claimed that it had received, the result it wanted at the 30 March 1978 referendum: endorsement of its proposal for Union Government (see Appendix B). In Ghana's unpredictable political climate, the SMC had spared no effort to make the outcome of the referendum as predictable as possible.

The July 1977 decision to call a national referendum was the result of pressures brought to bear on the SMC during the fall of 1976 and the spring of 1977. Widespread dissatisfaction with the management of the economy, coupled with indications that the military intended to remain in power for an indeterminate period led to student strikes which culminated in the 23 June 1977 demand by the Association of Recognized Professional Bodies (ARPB) that the government resign immediately (Resolution …). The ARPB's ultimatum was rejected out of hand by General Acheampong in his dawn broadcast of 1 July 1977. The ensuing general strike of lawyers, doctors, engineers, and other professionals almost paralyzed the country, and the SMC was virtually forced to announce a schedule for the return to civilian rule (see Appendix B). The first phase of the process was to culminate in the March 1978 referendum.

Undoubtedly, the SMC would have preferred a quiet, carefully controlled plebiscite, or more simply, a constitution octroyee which outlawed political parties and permitted, if the SMC thought it necessary, a reversion to full military control. As previous Ghanaian regimes have discovered to their peril, however, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent Ghanaians from openly and forcefully expressing themselves on important political issues. Thus, it was also not surprising that the decision to conduct a referendum released forces pent-up since the NRC took power in 1972.

An interest in the spatial organization of society has long been the province of geographers. Recently, scholars in other fields have been applying geographical models and concepts in their own studies. (See, for example, Howard (1976) on the usefulness of spatial analysis in African economic history.) The books under review indicate various ways in which geographical concepts of space and region are currendy being used. That by geographers Obudho and Waller represents an application of the concept of region to the problems of development planning. The two volumes edited by Smith, on the other hand, utilize spatial frameworks in a very broad way to examine many aspects of social and economic systems.

Smith's book indicates the current directions of a group of scholars—mainly anthropologists—who began by studying periodic marketing systems as spatial systems and who have now moved on to the examination of other aspects of social systems from a spatial perspective. Much of their work was stimulated by Skinner's (1964–65) work on marketing systems in China; Skinner's work in turn was based on models from economic geography, primarily central-place models. The first of the volumes, Economic Systems, is primarily concerned with marketing systems, while the second, Social Systems, considers institutions such as political, religious, and kinship systems.