Foreign policy under military rule in Ghana, 1966-1982
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Date
2015-01-20
Authors
Etsiah, Akyinba Kofi
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Abstract
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.