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The Introduction is in three parts. The first introduces the object of study and the sources and methodology used to study it and puts the topic in its historiographical context. The second locates it in terms of the religio-political developments of the period between the 1590s and the 1620s. The third addresses the immediate political and polemical circumstances in which Laudianism rose to prominence and then power in the mid- to late 1620s, and then identifies the 1630 edition of Lancelot Andrewes’ sermons as the movement’s key foundational text or mission statement.

Contrary to expectations of modern democratic development, the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions in Ghana has not led to the demise of political clientelism. Instead, the underlying informal institutions of leadership—friendship, capitalist entrepreneurship, family, and religion—contribute to the persistence of personal rule in urban Ghana. Leaders amass political power by accumulating followers in daily life. The article provides empirical evidence to substantiate these theoretical claims in the form of two ethnographic case studies—a politician’s primary campaign and the screening of a football match in an urban slum. It proposes an alternative model for the study of democracy and political accountability that extends beyond the formal institutional realm to include informal mechanisms that shape political clientelism in a democratic environment.

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Introduction

Summary

Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana

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Introduction

Summary

Informal Institutions and Personal Rule in Urban Ghana