Foreign policy under military rule in Ghana, 1966-1982

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2015-01-20

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Etsiah, Akyinba Kofi

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This study examines the performance of the three military regimes that ruled Ghana during the period, 1966 - 1982. The analysis would seem to suggest that, contrary to post-covp rhetoric and expectations, military regimes are, in general, poor economic and political performers. In the field of foreign policy, a rational foreign policy based on an even balance between Ghana's national interest and its actual and potential power eluded the country under the three regimes. The study is exploratory, designed to contribute a better empirical base to the field of study and to formulate a preliminary theoretical proposition, namely that, in Ghana, the foreign policy formulation and conduct of military officers tends to vary according to differences in their reference group identifications and these in turn, vary according to differences in the professional socialisation process undergone by the country's officer corps. To the degree that the professional socialisation of officers differs, or to the degree that it changes over time, differences can be expected in the nature of Ghana's foreign policy under military rule. It would therefore be expected that as the colonial experience becomes remote, so will the reference group identifications of the military officers be affected, and with it, their attitudes and behaviour. In time, Ghana may come to rely on its own training institutions and/or its army may undergo combat experience (such as the one in Congo-Zaire) from which it develops an indigenous military tradition as a result of which non-indigenous reference groups can be expected to be of much less salience for the officer corps. Finally, it may be noted that in Ghana, junior officers who do not receive "elite" training in foreign academics, or those who were not professionally socialised in the pre-independence colonial army, can be expected to possess less intense psychological commitments to non-indigenous reference groups than those of their superiors who have received such training. But whether foreign or locally trained, the analysis would suggest that military officers are hardly the right people to pursue successful foreign policies. The main reason for this is the military's lock of political legitimacy, with all its international economic, political and diplomatic implications.

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