The Role of Customary Governance Systems in Enhancing Local Democracy: The Case of Ghana

  • Margaret Sackey

Abstract

Local governance, decentralization and democracy are components of the Ghanaian traditional chieftaincy institution. This institution in the past engendered participatory democracy, good governance and social protection but is currently challenged by formal decentralization of public administration. Although the institution has remained intact, its functions have gone through several paradigm shifts both during the colonial and the post-independence eras of Ghana. Currently, the chieftaincy does not form part of the formal local government administration structure. In an enigmatic form, it maintains an informal and sacrosanct niche in local governance. There is a need for redefinition and clarification of the roles of the chieftaincy institution within the nexus of traditions, demands of good governance and modern local democracy to enable it to provide a complementary conduit for effective and efficient local governance for development.

Author Biography

Margaret Sackey
Head, Department of Local Government Administration, Institute of Local Government Studies, Accra, Ghana.
Published
2017-03-10
Section
Articles

Keywords

customary governance, chieftaincy institution, traditional governance, decentralization, local government, local democracy

Most read articles by the same author(s)

Obs.: This plugin requires at least one statistics/report plugin to be enabled. If your statistics plugins provide more than one metric then please also select a main metric on the admin's site settings page and/or on the journal manager's settings pages.