Political Settlement Dynamics and the Emergence and Decline of Bureaucratic Pockets of Effectiveness in Ghana

This chapter explores the factors that shape the performance trajectories of three relatively effective public organizations in Ghana, namely, the Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Ghana, and the Ghana Revenue Authority. Drawing on an original investigation of organizational performance under the various political settlements that Ghana has experienced in the past few decades, it argues that although ‘pockets of effectiveness’ can emerge under different political settlement types and dynamics, such agencies are more likely to endure in concentrated political settlements than in contexts characterized by dispersed configurations of power. The main mechanism that links Ghana’s shifting political settlement and organizational performance is the quality of organizational leadership and its relationship to the political leadership of the day. Much depends on whether organizational leaders are (a) deemed politically loyal enough to be awarded the protection required to deliver on their mandate and (b) possess the political management skills required to navigate difficult political conditions. High levels of support (both technical and financial) from international development agencies and the privileged status of these organizations as key nodes of economic governance have undoubtedly helped them attain high levels of performance vis-à-vis the wider public bureaucracy. Nevertheless, the fact that the performance of these agencies has waxed and waned over time, despite international support and mandates being largely constant, suggests that the key to understanding their performance lies with political economy factors, with their effectiveness regularly undermined by the increasingly dispersed nature of power within Ghana’s political settlement and the resultant vulnerability of ruling elites.