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A Reassessment of Conventional Wisdom About the Informed Public: National Political Information in Ghana*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Fred M. Hayward
Fred M. Hayward
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Abstract

This study examines the extent, impact and implications of political information in Ghana using survey data. A major interest is to identify and examine variables which influence level of information and to look at the consequences for the political process of different levels of political information. I examine conventional wisdom concerning the ignorance of the masses about national politics and call into question some common assumptions. Many of the differences usually assumed between developed and underdeveloped nations are found either not to exist or to be smaller than hypothesized. The data suggest that in some areas of national political information the masses in non-modernized societies are more politically aware than their counterparts in modernized societies. It is also suggested that there is no necessary link between education (literacy) and political information and that there are a number of functional equivalents to formal education. In the last section of the study several propositions about the informed citizenry are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 433 - 451
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1976

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References

1 Some writers are a little more explicit. Lloyd, Peter suggests that the West African masses are apathetic toward government because they have little education and “… scant experience of the world beyond their own small communities.…” Africa in Social Change, 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger. 1968), p. 220Google Scholar. In discussing political interest in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Collier, Gershon states: “As a matter of fact, the vast majority of the people were totally oblivious of what was happening. …” Sierra Leone: Experiment in Democracy in an African Nation (New York: New York University Press, 1970), p. 97Google Scholar.

2 Ithiel de Sola Pool, in his article “The Necessity for Social Scientists Doing Research for Governments,” argues that in most developing nations there are two countries, that of the masses and that of the intelligentsia. The problem is to bring them together. He suggests that “the link will be made somehow with or without us. If it is made by ideological political movements it will be made by revolutions and it will be made in turmoil and struggle by people killing each other. There is a better way now of making this link and that is through social science research.” Background, 10 (August, 1966), 115–116Google Scholar. The implication is that the masses will succumb to either approach and that it would thus be “better” to move quickly with the non-revolutionary approach which is somehow inherent in the social sciences.

3 An argument put most forcefully by Huntington, Samuel in “Political Development and Political Decay,” in Political Modernization, ed. Welch, Claude E., Jr. (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1967)Google Scholar.

4 This argument was made by the president of the constitutional committee of the Territorial Assembly in 1959, but is in keeping with both the policy and the operation of the PDCI since that time. Quoted in Zolberg, Aristide R., One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), pp. 253–54Google Scholar.

5 Lane and Sears noted that in democracies it is assumed that citizens undertake the burden of being informed about political affairs so that they can carry out their civic duties effectively. Similar assumptions are made in other systems. Whether or not the citizen is in fact well informed is an empirical question. See Lane, Robert E. and Sears, David O., Public Opinion (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964), chapter 6Google Scholar.

6 Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip, Miller, Warren, Stokes, Donald, The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960) chap. 20Google Scholar, discuss assumptions about the informed citizen and electoral behavior.

7 This argument was made by a number of the leaders of the coup. See for example, Afrifa, A. A., The Ghana Coup (London: Frank Cass, 1967)Google Scholar.

8 See Hayward, Fred M., “Ghana's Experiment with Civic Education” Africa Report, 16(May, 1971), 24–27Google Scholar.

9 Lane and Sears argue that while this is a basic assumption about the effect of civic knowledge, it is wrong. They suggest that attachments come in other ways—from childhood experiences, satisfaction, fear of deviance, and a variety of rewards (Public Opinion, p. 61).

10 At the time of the establishment of the Centre for Civic Education General Ankrah, Chairman of the NLC. suggested that “we are fully convinced that, with the initiation of nationwide civic education as the solid bedrock in our society, we can confidently look forward to a new civilian government in which elections will be held in a clean and free atmosphere without any victimization, violence and personal vindictiveness; in which the government will realize its limitations and in which the rights and privileges of the people shall be guaranteed.” Speech at the inauguration of the Centre for Civic Education, June 7, 1967. There were other expectations of the founders of the C.C.E., including the hope that it would prove a useful vehicle for election of a particular kind of politician in the forthcoming election and provide its leader, Dr. Busia, with public exposure prior to elections. See Saffu, Yaw Opong. “Politics in a Military Regime: The Case of Ghana” (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford University. 1973) esp. chap. 3Google Scholar.

11 The relationship of communication to development has been discussed by many writers. Pye, Lucian W., for example, writes about the general tendency of non-western systems to be hampered by communications difficulties in “The NonWestern Political Process,” The Journal of Politics, 20 (August, 1958), 468–486CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In his superb sketch of Balgat, Turkey, Daniel Lerner analyzes the impact of communications on development in a single community and suggests its implications for developing areas as a whole. Lerner, Daniel, The Passing of Traditional Society (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

12 Devine, Donald J., The Attentive Public (Chicago: Rand McNally Co., 1970), pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

13 Hazel Gaudet Erskine has done us the great service of bringing together data from a wide variety of polls taken in the United States over the years. She shows very clearly how poorly Americans are informed about politics. See her “The Polls: The Informed Public,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 26 (Winter, 1962), 669–677CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “The Polls: Textbook Knowledge” Public Opinion Quarterly, 27 (Spring, 1963), 133–141CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “The Polls: Exposure to Domestic Information” Public Opinion Quarterly, 27 (Fall, 1963), 491–500CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Frantz Fanon discussed the educational aspects of radio in Algeria as a means of mobilizing the masses during the Algerian Revolution. See his A Dying Colonialism, trans. Chevalier, Haakon (New York: Grove Press, 1965), chap. 2Google Scholar.

15 In his study, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics, “Philip Converse notes that “even in the modern United States, there are scattered pockets of population that are rather vague about national identity. We encounter respondents, for example, who when asked if they were born in the United States, answer ‘No. I was born in Georgia,’ in what is clearly ignorance rather than a throwback to secession or kittenish state pride.” Converse in Ideology and Discontent, ed. Apter, David (New York: Free Press, 1964), p. 258Google Scholar.

16 This territory had been part of German Togoland which was occupied by the English and French during World War I. Part of the territory (now the Volta Region) remained under British Mandate until a plebiscite in 1956 which resulted in merger with Ghana just prior to its independence in 1957.

17 This compares with the following results in the United States in August 1948. Ninety-one per cent of the respondents could name Harry Truman as the Democratic candidate for president. In 1947, 98% said that they had heard of him and had a reasonably correct idea who he was. See Erskine, Hazel Gaudet, “The Polls: The Informed Public,” p. 670Google Scholar.

18 Election results are cited in Birth of the Second Republic, ed. Danquah, Moses (Accra: Editorial & Publishing Services, circa 1969)Google Scholar.

19 Cited in the Gallup Opinion Index Report No. 58, April 1970 (Princeton: Gallup International Inc., 1970), p. 20Google Scholar.

20 Erskine, Hazel Gaudet, “The Polls: Textbook Knowledge,” p. 138 and Gallup Opinion Index, April 1970, p. 20Google Scholar.

21 The seven items in the scale were: Who was Prime Minister when Ghana attained independence? Who is Prime Minister now? Do you know his political party? Who ran the government before the last election? What parties opposed the Progress Party in the election? Who is your representative in Parliament? Can you name any Ministers in the government? Respondents scored only one point for one or more Ministers. The scale is a summated rating scale coded as (1) for a correct answer and (0) for an incorrect answer. Thus, a score of seven would mean that the respondent correctly identified all of the items, a zero that none had been correctly identified, and so on.

22 Ghanaians would not be expected to have comparable knowledge about formal institutions or the constitution, since those aspects of national politics in Ghana have changed rather frequently in the period since independence unlike the case in the United States.

23 In this study the focus was on learning whether respondents had a correct view of Ghana's territory rather than in looking at stages in the process of learning about the nation. However, the limits on formal education and the isolation of many areas create conditions which put many adults in positions similar to the school children discussed by Jahoda, Gustav in “The Development of Children's Ideas about Country and Nationality; Part I: The Conceptual Framework,” British Journal of Educational Psychology, 33 (Feb., 1963), 47–60, esp. p. 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Eleven per cent of the respondents identified places or divisions other than what could be reasonably construed as the official boundaries of the country. About five per cent of the sample identified wrong boundaries within Ghana, another five per cent, boundaries outside of Ghana and one per cent, incorrect boundaries both inside and outside Ghana's present borders.

25 The Mossi are mostly from Upper Volta, but they are very closely related to a number of Northern Ghanaian ethnic groups including the Dagomba.

26 In terms of self-identification as Ghanaians, of the ethnic groups represented in the sample in reasonably large numbers, 98 per cent or better identified their own ethnic group as Ghanaian.

27 Some of the Hausa and Yoruba traders in particular had lived in the North for several generations and had little or no idea about the location of their “home” in Nigeria. Most of the Mossi were migrant laborers who came to Ghana seasonally to work on the cocoa harvest or as laborers in other areas.

28 The dependent variables (the three information scales) are interval data. For each respondent, the score is the sum of correct responses to the respective questions about political knowledge, boundaries, and Ghanaian ethnic groups.

29 Occupation was ranked on the basis of the degree of technical competence required, and size of town was determined by population. Economic position was estimated by the interviewers on the basis of an established set of criteria. Accurate measures of economic position are difficult to obtain in much of Africa since there is general suspicion that any information volunteered will be used to assess taxes or other levies. Ethnic groups were coded non-northern, northern, etc. The largest group in the northern sample was Dagomba. The largest southern ethnic groups in the sample were Akuapem, Shai, Ashanti, and Fanti.

30 Education was coded on the basis of amount of schooling, ranging from none through college. Age was coded by age cohort. Sex was coded female–male. Urban was coded rural–urban. Mobility was operationalized on the basis of whether or not respondents have lived in other villages or towns for a year or more. A positive response was taken as an indication of mobility.

31 For example: Lane, and Sears, , Public Opinion, p. 62Google Scholar; Hyman, Herbert H. and Sheatsley, Paul B., “The Current Status of American Public Opinion” in Public Opinion and Propaganda, ed. Katz, Daniel et al. , (New York: Dryden Press, 1954), pp. 35–36Google Scholar; Devine, Donald, The Attentive Public, pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

32 Hyman and Sheatsley, pp. 35–37.

33 In Public Opinion, p. 612, Lane and Sears report the same pattern in the United States.

34 In 1965, Ghana ranked sixth in level of literacy in independent Africa south of the Sahara, although in the middle decile range in terms of percentage literate. See Morrison, Donald G. et al. , eds., Black Africa; A Comparative Handbook (New York: Free Press, 1972), p. 70Google Scholar.

35 Daniel Lerner, The Passing of Traditional Society, chap. 1.

36 See for example, Almond, Gabriel and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 388CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip, Miller, Warren and Stokes, Donald, The American Voter (New York: John Wiley, 1960), pp. 272–76Google Scholar; Katz, Elihu and Lazarsfeld, Paul L., Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955), p. 271Google Scholar.

37 This corresponds with findings of Campbell et al. in The American Voter, p. 485, that in the southern United States women tended to be less politically involved than men, as reflected in voter turnout. In general, however, we find that sex differences are mitigated or disappear when socioeconomic factors are controlled.

39 Morrison, et al. , Black Africa, p. 78Google Scholar.

40 Reported by one distributor of the East African Standard in Kenya as quoted in Hatchen, William, Muffled Drums: The News Media in Africa (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1971), p. 211Google Scholar.

41 The sources of information were coded no (0) yes (1). The political information scales were coded from low to high scores.

42 The N for the political knowledge scale is too small (N = 27) to permit confidence in the results of multiple regression analysis running sources against the political knowledge scale.

43 The information variables are treated as independent variables in this section. Since most of the dependent variables are not based on interval data, a lower-order correlation, Gamma, is used. The integration scale was based on responses to the following questions: Do you feel that what the national government does is important? When government does something with which you disagree, do you feel responsible? Does the government stand for methods and ideals you value? Given your conception of the ideal political system, are we getting closer to this ideal government? Each respondent was scored zero through four. For a more detailed discussion of the scale, coding, and methods see Hayward, Fred, “Correlates of National Political Integration: The Case of Ghana,” Comparative Political Studies, 7 (July, 1974), 165–192CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 The question asked respondents was: Does loyalty to the nation conflict with your loyalty to your ethnic or traditional group, your chief or local leaders?

45 The political competence scale is based on the following questions: 1) Suppose a law was being considered by government that you thought unjust or harmful. What do you think you could do? 2) In such a case, is it likely that you would actually try to do something about it? 3) Have you ever done anything like that? This scale (like the other scales used here) is a summated rating scale with respondents scored on the basis of “correct” responses or those indicating the presence or absence of the particular characteristic, in this case responses reflecting a sense of competence. Scores ranged from zero to three.

46 Respondents were asked: Have you dealt with any of the following agencies, their officials or representatives? (list followed). Have you found them helpful? This item is based on responses to the last question.

47 The major reason cited for the preference for national control was extensive corruption at the local level. While the national government was certainly not immune to this phenomenon, its record was better than that of most local councils. There was also a feeling among respondents that the national government had more resources which would be made available to local areas by such a shift in control.

48 Lester Milbrath, in his summary study of participation, notes that participation as measured by voting is the most thoroughly researched of all political behavior, partly because of its frequency and the ease of quantification. As Milbrath notes, however, many other aspects of participation warrant further study. See Milbrath, Lester, Political Participation (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965), esp. chap. 1Google Scholar.

49 The questions were: What purposes does an opposition party serve? (coded as indicating “useful,” “not useful”). Do you think the country would be run differently if there were a one-party state? (coded as “better,” “same,” “worse”).

50 Interviewer notes made by the author, northern Ghana, March 1970.

51 After a brief period of open party competition at the time of independence, the regime became a virtual one-party state under Nkrumah with harsh political control of the opposition. In 1966, a coup d'état brought in the government of the National Liberation Council. In 1969 government was returned to civilian rule, competitive elections were held and a Progress Party Government formed. There was another coup in 1972 ushering in a period of military rule.

52 Almond and Verba compared the level of information in the United States with that in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Mexico in terms of respondents' ability to name party leaders and ministers. Respondents in the United States were highest in both categories. The Civic Culture, pp. 95–96.

53 Sears, David O., “Political Behavior,” in Lindzey, Gardner and Aronson, Elliot, eds., The Handbook of Social Psychology, 2nd. ed. (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969), V, 328Google Scholar.

54 Hyman, and Sheatsley, , “The Current Status of American Public Opinion,” p. 36Google Scholar.

55 Sears, , “Political Behavior,” pp. 315–458Google Scholar; Sears, David O. and Whitney, Richard E., Political Persuasion (Morristown, New Jersey: General Learning Press, 1973), p. 7Google Scholar.

56 Devine, , The Attentive Public, p. 35Google Scholar.

57 One can see this theme in Mecklin, John, Mission in Torment (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965)Google Scholar, and Ithiel de Sola Pool, “The Necessity for Social Scientists Doing Research for Governments.”

58 Katz, and Lazarsfeld, , Personal Influence, p. 16Google Scholar.

59 Mecklin, , Mission in Torment, p. 76Google Scholar. While Mecklin seems to feel that this inability to reason aided the Viet Cong it did not help the USIS, primarily, he suggests, because the Diem government was so corrupt. One wonders why this corruption was clear to an atrophied mind when the Viet Cong horrors he mentions were not.

60 This sense of mass awareness is beautifully portrayed in Womack, John, Zapata and the Mexican Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1968)Google Scholar and in novel, Carlo Levi'sChrist Stopped at Eboli (New York: Noonday, 1947)Google Scholar. Even in studies like that of Almond and Verba which show that the level of political ignorance in many areas is surprisingly high, it is clear that respondents do have ideas about politics, political values, and goals. Their areas of ignorance are much more likely to reflect lack of interest and the low salience of politics than a need for external stimulation or organization.

61 See for example, Hovland, Carl I., Janis, Irving L., Kelley, Harold H., Communication and Persuasion: Psychological Studies of Opinion Change (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953)Google Scholar; Katz, and Lazarsfeld, , The People's Choice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)Google Scholar.

62 Hyman, and Sheatsley, , “The Current Status of American Public Opinion,” p. 37Google Scholar.

63 Ibid., p. 40.

64 This is certainly the implication of the PDCI official's statement quoted in the introduction.

65 Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul, and McPhee, William suggest in Voting: A Study of Opinion Formation in a Presidential Campaign (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)Google Scholar that reduced participation of the uninterested benefits the system by aiding stability and also provides maneuvering room for political change—change often possible primarily because of indifference. (See especially pp. 314–15.)

66 Seventy-one per cent of the respondents agreed with that statement, 23 per cent disagreed, and 6 per cent said that they did not know.

67 In his superb study of politics and symbolism, Murray Edelman suggests that “… individual' positions on public issues are mobilizable rather than fixed; that government activities are themselves potent influence upon change and mobilization of public attitudes; and that the significant Outputs' of political activities are not particular public policies labeled as political goals, but rather the creation of political followings and supports: i.e., the evocation of arousal or quiescence in mass publics.” See Politics as Symbolic Action (Chicago: Markham Publishing Co. 1971), p. 4Google Scholar.

68 For further discussion, see Fred M. Hayward, “Ghana's Experiment with Civic Education.

69 The demographic characteristics of these communities very closely approximated the national distribution as illustrated by the 1960 census. For example, the occupational breakdown for the sample indicates close similarity with the national figures. The distribution for the sample was: agriculture, 56%; artisan, 3%; technical, 6%; industrial, 4%; business and trade, 12%; professional, 6%; student, 3%; housewife, 10%; other, 1%. This corresponds closely to the overall occupational breakdown for the whole of Ghana in 1960, which (when adjusted to the categories used here) was: agriculture, 49%; artisan, 5%; technical, 4%; industrial, 4%; business and trade, 12%; professional, 2%; student 2%; housewife, 19%; other, 3%; 1960 Population Census of Ghana (Accra: Government of Ghana, 1962), vol. 1Google Scholar.

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