The chief, the mine captain and the politician: legitimating power in northern Ghana

Abstract

This article explores the strategies of acquiring and legitimating power in Ghana, taking the example of three ‘big men’ from the north, a paramount chief, a mine captain and a politician in the making. After offering some observations on the recent public debate on the (im)morality of power and ‘bigness’, it outlines the biographies of these three ‘big men’ and analyses how they skilfully combine different registers of power and legitimacy. It then analyses the strategies of legitimation and grounds of moral judgement which depend, at least to a certain degree, on the particular relationship of the ‘judge’ with the ‘big man’ in question. The article concludes by discussing the common ‘grammar’ that seems to regulate the debates on ‘bigness’, morality and interest.

In The Land of the Chiefs : Customary Law, Land Conflicts, and the Role of the State in Peri-Urban Ghana

“…Many African governments also try to bridge the gap between government and civil society and strengthen the position of national government by integrating the sphere of tradition into the space of governmental power as a symbolic, legitimizing resource. Governmental leaders for instance frequently use external traditional features such as traditional regalia, titles, symbols, and myths (Lentz 1998;Van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal 1996: 43-4, 54;Von Trotha 1996: 87-88). Traditional authorities also have a role to play in the field of natural resource management.…”

Legitimization through patronage? Strategies for political control beyond ethno-regional claims in Darjeeling, India

“…Such beliefs and moral norms are always contested in society. In her study on the legitimacy of ''big men'' in Ghana, Lentz (1998) observed a variety of differing moral values and norms based on which leaders' performance is evaluated. The existence of such different ''moral communities'' (Lentz, 1998, p. 62) emphasizes that the parameters of legitimacy are not fixed but ''debated, agreed upon or rejected within processes of social competition and/or conflict'' (Alfonso et al, 2004, p. xii).…”

“…The existence of such different ''moral communities'' (Lentz, 1998, p. 62) emphasizes that the parameters of legitimacy are not fixed but ''debated, agreed upon or rejected within processes of social competition and/or conflict'' (Alfonso et al, 2004, p. xii). Legitimacy thus understood is not a static attribute of power but a constructed and contested notion (Alfonso et al, 2004, p. xi;Lentz, 1998).…”

Going with the Grain in African Development?

“…Rather, people are constructed in the interplay of different and often conflicting social currents, giving rise to complex and sometimes self-contradictory subjectivities, all of which make concerted action in any particular direction difficult to achieve (Kelsall, 2004). Carola Lentz, in her analysis of big men in contemporary Ghana, urges something similar when, critiquing Schatzberg, she argues that legitimacy should be thought of not as a matrix but as a plural and contested process (Lentz, 1998). See also Durham (2002) 52 See Manor (2008: 3-6).…”