The Ghana armed forces and Ghanaian society

Austin, Dennis

doi:10.1080/01436598508419826

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The advent of Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings onto the Ghanaian political scene in June 1979 has been well documented and therefore needs no elaboration here (Yeebo 1985;Austin 1985;Bienen 1985;Gyimah-Boadi 2001). Of more interest to this article is his ''second coming'' on December 31, 1981.…”

Section: State-civil Society Relations In Ghana Under J J Rawlingsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Atibil

2012

Voluntas

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Section: State-civil Society Relations In Ghana Under J J Rawlingsmentioning

confidence: 92%

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Atibil

2012

Voluntas

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“…For instance, multiple factions inside the presidential guard in Benin engaged in coup attempts once threatened with disbandment following president Kerekou's electoral defeat in 1991 (Banégas, 2003, p. 190). These institutions and practices passed on at independence should also have proven only more enduring as both Franco-and Anglophone countries continued sending their officers to military academies in the former metropole, thus reinforcing existing military doctrines (Blanchard, 2014, p. 13;McNamara, 1989;Hettne, 1980;Austin, 1985;Tilly, 1985, p. 186).…”

Section: The Security Apparatus Of the French Colonial Empirementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, these actions instead had the opposing effect, as he was deposed by a pre-emptive Ewe-led military coup in 1966, an event that was the start of a series of coups and countercoups resulting from power struggles between different factions in the officer corps (Austin, 1985).…”

Section: Case Evidence: Counterbalancing In Cote D'ivoire and Ghanamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, we build on a host of studies which examine the origin of the armed forces and civil-military relations in former French, British, and other colonies (Adekson, 1979;Austin, 1985;Harkness, 2018;Hettne, 1980;Luckham, 1994;McGowan & Johnson, 1984;Owusu, 1989). Most of these existing studies focus on a single or few cases but are unable to make systematic claims on the relationship between colonial history and present-day security forces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The colonial roots of structural coup-proofing

Mehrl

Choulis

2021

International Interactions

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Colonially inherited institutions are a key determinant of the regime type and economic outcomes of postcolonial countries. This study extends this claim to civil-military relations, arguing that former French colonies are especially likely to invest in structural coupproofing. France created paramilitary units throughout its colonies for which many natives were recruited. After independence, these paramilitaries proved persistent and were consequently used to counterbalance the regular armed forces. In contrast, countries without existing paramilitary organizations had stronger militaries which deterred and even forcibly prevented structural coup-proofing. Quantitative tests using global data on coup-proofing and a paired comparison of civil-military relations in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana support the claim that former French colonies are more likely to heavily invest in counterbalancing. By showing how French colonial institutions provided post-independence governments with the opportunity to coup-proof, the study contributes to our understanding of civil-military relations as well as the institutional long-term effects of colonialism and foreign rule more generally.

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“…Ghana's commitment to global peacekeeping has seen its forces serve in over 63 UN PKOs, currently with a total of 2,156 personnel in nine missions, the biggest contributions being in South Sudan, Lebanon and Mali. 2 Much of the existing literature outlines the history of Ghana's participation in PKOs (Edu-Afful et al, 2019 ;Asante, 2019;Austin, 1985); the rationale for providing peacekeepers ; the contribution to West African PKOs (Aboagye, 1999;Birikorang, 2007); the unintended consequences of PKOs (Aning, 2007a); the experiences from peacekeeping theatres (Aning & Edu-Afful, 2017;Kotia, 2015); the rebellion after participating in peacekeeping (Dwyer, 2015); and how the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) has become a civilian-friendly army due to its peacekeeping activities abroad (Agyekum, 2019). Little, however, has been written about internal security provision when peacekeepers return home (Albrecht, 2022a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Anatomy of Ghanaian Domestic Military Operations: Exploring Operations Vanguard and Calm Life

Edu-Afful¹

2022

Cont. J. Afr. Stud.

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This article focuses on the under-researched and under-discussed domestic security implications in Ghana of military participation in international peacekeeping operations. While there is appreciable awareness and knowledge of the role of peacekeepers in reducing conflict in host countries, very little attention is given to their actions when they return home. The money, training and combat experience emanating from peacekeeping are likely to have considerable institutional, policy, operational (tactics, techniques and procedures) and political consequences in their home countries. In Ghana, especially, peacekeeping training and combat experience provide tools that can be used for internal security interventions. Increasingly, there has been a change in policy in Ghana where the military is involved in several local security operations. This policy shift has seen the creation of a number of joint internal operations involving the military and the police. Based on fieldwork in Ghana, the article explores two major internal operations: Operation Calm Life (to combat armed robbery) and Operation Vanguard (to combat illegal mining). The study shows how diverse dimensions of experience from peacekeeping have practical implications for shaping domestic security provision.

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The Ghana armed forces and Ghanaian society

Cited by 7 publications

References 1 publication

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

Democratic Governance and Actors’ Conceptualization of “Civil Society” in Africa: State–Civil Society Relations in Ghana from 1982–2000

The colonial roots of structural coup-proofing

The Anatomy of Ghanaian Domestic Military Operations: Exploring Operations Vanguard and Calm Life

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