Within seemingly weak states, exceptionally effective subunits lie hidden. These high-performing niches exhibit organizational characteristics distinct from poor-performing peer organizations, but also distinct from high-functioning organizations in Western countries. This article develops the concept of interstitial bureaucracy to explain how and why unusually high-performing state organizations in developing countries invert canonical features of Weberian bureaucracy. Interstices are distinct-yet-embedded subsystems characterized by practices inconsistent with those of the dominant institution. This interstitial position poses particular challenges and requires unique solutions. Interstices cluster together scarce proto-bureaucratic resources to cultivate durable distinction from the status quo, while managing disruptions arising from interdependencies with the wider neopatrimonial field. I propose a framework for how bureaucratic interstices respond to those challenges, generalizing from organizational comparisons within the Ghanaian state and abbreviated historical comparison cases from the nineteenth-century United States, early-twentieth-century China, mid-twentieth-century Kenya, and early-twenty-first-century Nigeria.

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Based on an original dataset of university students, this article investigates Ghanaian collective memories of past events that are sources of national pride or shame. On average, young elite Ghanaians express more pride than shame in their national history, and they report shame mostly over actions that caused some physical, material, or symbolic harm. Such actions include not only historic events and the actions of national leaders, but also mundane social practices of average Ghanaians. Respondents also report more "active" than "receptive" shame; that is, they are more ashamed of events or practices that caused harm to others and less ashamed about events in which they were the "victims." We advance the idea of a standard of "reasonableness" that Ghanaians apply in their evaluation of events, behaviors, or circumstances: they apply contemporary standards of morality to past events, but they temper their judgment based on considerations of whether past actions were "reasonable" given the power and material imbalances at that time. Ghanaian students identify strongly with both national and pan-African identities, and they frequently evoke their international image to judge a national event as either honorable or shameful. Ethnicity can be one factor in an individual's judgment of precolonial events, whereas political party affiliation is the stronger predictor of attitudes toward postindependence events.Resume: En se basant sur des archives originales rassemblees par un corps etudiant, cet article enquete sur la memoire collective ghaneenne d'evenements passes African 121 122 African Studies Review qui sont source soit de fierte soit de honte pour la nation. On decouvre que en moyenne, les jeunes Ghaneens expriment plus de fierte que de honte en ce qui concerne leur histoire nationale, et qu'ils eprouvent plus de honte pour les evenements qu'ils ont provoques que pour les evenements dont ils ont ete victimes. Nous soutenons l'idee que les Ghaneens appliquent a leur jugement du passe un standard rationnel caique sur des standards contemporains de moralite, mais que leur evaluation est biaisee par des considerations liees au pouvoir et aux inegalites materielles actuels. Les etudiants Ghaneens s'identifient fortement aux identites nationales et panafricaines, et ils evoquent souvent une image internationale pour juger un evenement national comme honorable ou honteux. L'ethnicite peut etre un facteur dans le jugement individuel d'evenements precoloniaux, tandis que l'affiliation a un parti est le facteur le plus determinant dans 1'evaluation d'evenements ayant eu lieu apres l'independance. Enfin, nous avons decouvert que la jeunesse Ghaneenne ressentait des sentiments de fierte ou de honte non seulement envers des dirigeants nationaux et des evenements historiques, mais egalement envers les comportements du peuple ghaneen lui-meme.