How have the waves of democracy and decentralization that swept the developing world in recent decades affected states--among the most important drivers of poverty and prosperity--at national and local levels in Ghana and beyond? State actors beneath the national level--what Barry Driscoll calls the local state--have considerable responsibility for carrying out state functions, but they are also forced to compete for these local state offices. How does a local state actually work in poor twentieth-century countries? This book offers a descriptive account, as well as a causal explanation, of how political competition affects the local state in Ghana. Driscoll shows how closely fought elections drive local state institutions to provide patronage. The source of these demands for patronage comes not from rent-seeking bureaucrats or landed elites but from the government's own party volunteers. Driscoll explains how electoral competition affects how local state actors are insulated from such patronage demands. Moreover, these highly competitive, patronage-providing local governments actually have relatively better-qualified senior civil servants at their disposal. Driscoll makes sense of this paradox by introducing the logic of building administrative capacity in order to provide patronage. He then abstracts from the case of Ghana to generalize about how the effect of political competition is shaped by the locally salient variety of clientelism, which in turn is conditioned by the strength of the party system. The book draws on fourteen months of fieldwork in six of Ghana's districts, far from the nation's capital city. Ethnographic and interview data come from time spent with market traders, tax collectors, politicians, and other figures in local state offices. Quantitative data come from a survey covering almost all local governments. The result is a detailed account of Ghana's local state power dynamics that has relevant implications for states across the developing world.

Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana (Ohio RIS Africa Series)

Business & Money

Driscoll, Barry

Management & Leadership

Ohio University Press

In International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions, award-winning scholars Scott Straus and Barry Driscoll introduce your students to the foundations of International Studies; the major actors, institutions and theories; as well as the contemporary problems that will matter most to students.

International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions

Straus, Scott

Reference

CQ Press

The challenge of teaching international studies is to help you think coherently about the multiple causes and effects of global problems. In International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions, award-winning scholars Scott Straus and Barry Driscoll give you a clear framework that pinpoints how key factors―forces, interactions, and tensions―contribute to world events, with both global and local consequences. The authors first show you how to look for common patterns in global issues by introducing four world-shaping forces: global markets, shifting centers of power, information and communications technologies, and global governance. They systematically trace how these forces prompt interactions among world actors and thus give rise to a set of tensions that spur key challenges. The framework enables you to ask and answer for yourself―Who is interacting? Where did such interactions develop? What policies or institutions govern them? Why are they getting certain global and local reactions? You are then apply the framework to the global problems that matter most to you: human rights abuses, economic inequality, terrorism, forced migration, pandemics and global health responses, climate change, food security, and more. International Studies raises the bar for the Introduction to IS course, moving beyond interdisciplinary, and into the realm of critical analysis to increase student relevancy and motivation.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Driscoll, Barry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Driscoll, Barry

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Driscoll, Barry. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana (Ohio RIS Africa Series)

International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions

International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions