School of Social Sciences
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Item The Politics Of Public Policy Implementation In Ghana: The Case Of Small-Scale Mining Legislation(University Of Ghana, 2023) Botchway, B.A.In Ghana, successive governments have employed various measures to streamline the small-scale mining (SSM) sector. These measures span four broad strategies: the enactment of legislation; the deployment of security taskforce; stakeholder engagement; and constituting inter-ministerial taskforces. However, these strategies seemed not to have produced the expected results. Focusing on legislation, the study assessed the political drivers or factors that affected the implementation of the SSM legislation in Ghana from 1989 - 2022. The study used the complexity of joint action model to assess the power play between the actors and how it affected the implementation of SSM legislation. The study employed the qualitative research approach to obtain primary data while secondary data was obtained from books, journal articles, etc. The results of the study showed that the number of actors involved in the implementation process and the power play among them reduced the chances of the successful implementation of the SSM legislation. Similarly, political factors such as the winner-takes-all politics, the delegate system of electing national party leadership, the lack of a national political party funding, and other challenges such as conflicts, delays, lack of capital and geological data, among others, frustrated the implementation of SSM legislation. The study, inter alia, recommended the empowerment of regulatory and security agencies to curb the illegality and other challenges affecting the implementation of SSM legislation.Item A (Re)turn to Older Conversations in African Studies(African Studies Review, 2021) Darkwah, A.K.; Lawrance, B.N.In an interdisciplinary journal such as the African Studies Review, we are all enriched by the unique perspectives that writers from different disciplines bring to the table. Historians, political scientists, economists, literary scholars, and sociologists can draw on their disciplinary perspectives as well as on the perspectives of other disciplines to gain insights into the continent, and we all are better off for it. What do we do, though, with disciplines that are considered ill-fitting for a study of Africa? Fifty years ago, the South African anthropologist Archie Mafeje remarked about how historically, on the continent, sociology had been viewed as a discipline best suited to making sense of the civilized European settler communities in the eastern and southern parts of the continent, while the rest of Africa could be left to anthropologists to study. He expressed the belief that these African sites, conceptualized as static and non-modernizing, lent themselves better to a discipline that had been developed to study the Other than one developed to study the metropole. Concepts such as modernity, civilization, and knowledge, as developed by sociologists, were perceived at the time as inappropriate for describing Africa, hence the decision to leave the study of the continent to those who worked with concepts such as kinship, “tribes,” and witchcraft beliefs. No wonder, then, that the early academics in many departments of sociology on the continent such as Kofi Abrefa Busia, Godwin Nukunya, and Max Assimeng, all of whom taught in the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana in its early years, were trained primarily in the United Kingdom as social anthropologists. Even today, there are many more African and Africanist anthropologists than there are sociol ogists.Item Relationship Between Workplace Bullying, and Employees' Subjective Well-Being: Does Resilience U Make a Difference?(Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2020) Annor, F.; Amponsah-Tawiah, K.The present study examines the potential protective role of resilience in workplace bullying. Specifically, the study investigates the association between workplace bullying and subjective well-being and whether high levels of resilience buffer the relationship. The study draws on data from a cross-sectional survey of 631 individuals employed in diverse organizations in Accra, Ghana. Results of moderated regression analysis showed that workplace bullying was associated with lower levels of subjective well-being. Although resilience moderated the relationship between workplace bullying and subjective well-being, it strengthened rather than weakened the relationship. The study's findings suggest that relying on individuals' resources in dealing with workplace bullying may be counterproductive. The findings underscore the need for organizations to institute measures to offer better protection of employees from exposure to bullying in the workplace.Item Access Barriers Encountered By Persons With Mobility Disabilities In Accra, Ghana(Journal of Social Inclusion, 2019) Naami, A.The environment is a critical factor for participation for everyone. The need for accessible transportation and a built environment for persons with disabilities to enjoy their basic human rights and fundamental freedoms cannot be overemphasized. This study sought to understand the daily experiences of persons with mobility disabilities with physical and transportation barriers in Accra-Ghana. Photovoice methodology was used to enable participants to tell their stories about access barriers that they encountered daily. A total of 153 pictures remained, out of 431, after the final selection of pictures that best communicated participants’ experiences with accessibility. These pictures were accompanied by 95 narratives corresponding to the content of the pictures as well as the messages that the participants sought to communicate. The pictures were taken from 11 different physical and transportation environments. Evidence from the study demonstrates the existence of barriers in the built environment and transportation, which impact negatively on the psychological and social lives of persons with mobility disabilities. The need for the removal of identified barriers to empowering persons with disabilities for sustainable development cannot be overemphasized. The paper, therefore, concludes with recommendations targeting the government, social workers, and disability activists about strategies to improve access to participation for persons with mobility disabilities.Item Navigating the Unknown Treasures of Guangzhou, China: Ghanaian Traders’ Networks and Strategies(African Human Mobility Review, 2019) Obeng, M.K.M.Using multiple ethnographic methodologies spanning 13 months and collecting data across borders, this paper suggests that African importers’ participation in the burgeoning economy of China is more nuanced than previously reported. It argues that approaches, motives, and strategies employed by these importers are subject to their trading capacities such as the size of capital, trading experiences, and locations of their imports. For instance, whereas experienced large-scale traders procure the services of ‘visa agents’ for convenient purposes, the small-scale traders need the ‘visa agents’ to be able to undertake their business in China.Item A cross-sectional study of knowledge and awareness of type 2 diabetes mellitus in a student population in Ghana: do demographics and lifestyle make a difference(Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 2019) Amankwah-Poku, M.Objective: To determine the level of knowledge and awareness of type 2 diabetes among undergraduate students and to investigate demographic and lifestyle variables associated with students’ level of knowledge and awareness. Design: Students from the University of Ghana (n = 726) were administered questionnaires to assess their knowledge and awareness of specific aspects of type 2 diabetes, namely, symptoms, treatment, and complications of the illness. Main Outcome Measures: Level of type 2 diabetes knowledge and awareness. Results: Knowledge and awareness were higher for diabetes treatment (then for diabetes symptoms and complications), with females have more knowledge and awareness than males. Significant differences were also found in the level of knowledge and awareness of students based on their discipline of study but not the number of years of study in the university. Also, students who engaged in physical exercise showed a higher level of general knowledge and awareness of type 2 diabetes. Finally, a family history of diabetes resulted in more knowledge and awareness of type 2 diabetes. Conclusions: Education in type 2 diabetes is needed to make individuals more aware of the illness and take preventive measures. The fact that the participants’ discipline of study produced differences in diabetes knowledge and awareness, suggest how education can make a difference in creating awareness.Item Implementation dynamics of local economic development: Comparative empirical experiences from Ghana’s local governance system(Local Economy, 2020) Agbevade, A.There has been an age old assertion that once public policies are formulated, the policies will automatically be implemented to achieve their stated objectives. To unravel this, the article through comparative empirical analysis discussed the dynamics that influenced local economic development implementation in Ghana. It emerged that four key dynamics: politics, leadership commitment and will, land tenure system and administrative, institutional and procedural mech anisms differently shaped local economic development implementation in the three local govern ment units. Whereas these factors promoted local economic development implementation in some of the assemblies, it hindered its successful implementation in others. The findings of this article are of significance to local economic development and local governance practitioners and politicians as they strife to implement local economic development policies.Item An Empirical Assessment Of The Impact Of Access To Credit On Farm Output: A Case Study Of Sefwi-Wiawso Municipality Ghana(Journal of Social Economics Research, 2019) Aduhene, D.T.; Boadu, S.; Obeng, E.The study examined the socio-demographic features of farmers and credit accessibility in the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipality Ghana. It also identifies the sources and factors influencing access to credit in the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipality. Primary data were obtained from 1,200 households and farmers within the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipal. The empirical analysis employed a logistic regression technique, the Tobit model, and the Endogenous Switching Regression Model (ESRM) to explore the accessibility of credit on productivity in the agriculture sector. The results revealed that age and gender are statistically significant in determining access to credit from both the logit and the endogenous regression models. The endogenous switching regression model further reveals that educational status, land ownership, and access to knowledge on credit significantly influence the amount of credit received by a particular farmer within the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipality. These findings have practical implications for the modernization of the Agriculture sector in Ghana. It is therefore important for various stakeholders to increase financial literacy among farming communities and financial institutions to increase credit accessibility in the Agriculture sector. It is therefore recommended that extension services provision, diversification of agriculture production, and easy access to credit from financial institutions in the Municipality be established to ensure increased agriculture production.Item Diplomacy of Architecture: Ghana, China and 60 Years of Spatial Engagement(Springer Nature, 2022) Adu Amoah, L.G.Abstract Africa- Asia relations entered upon a particularly intense and mutually entangling phase in the last two decades of the twentieth century; this process continues apace in this century. To be sure these relations have a long temporal sweep. Understanding holistically contemporary Ghana-China relations, and in particular the ways in which the manipulation of space has intervened upon and shaped the interaction must be located within this temporal sweep. Methodologically this work will engage discursively with the historical and contemporary information on some of China’s key construction and architectural activities in Ghana over the last six decades with the central aim of teasing out the changes and continuities (ideological, institutional, ideational and strategic) that have marked such undertakings. This work introduces in the process the idea of diplomacy of architecture as a useful analytic lens for exploring Africa-China relations.Item The absence of social capital and the failure of the Ghanian neoliberal mental model(Neoliberalism: National and Regional Experiments with Global Ideas, 2006-12) Amponsah, N.; Denzau, A.T.; Roy, R.K.In the 1980s, Ghana sought to institute market liberalization reforms based on policy prescriptions outlined by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank known as Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). SAPs were designed in accordance with a neoliberal framework known as the Washington Consensus (WC). The WC, a strand of the neoliberal shared mental model that was first coined by John Williamson, articulated a set of market-oriented policy prescriptions and goals that if pursued faithfully, would help encourage countries on the path to greater economic performance and prosperity. Such prescriptions included instructing governments to pursue policies and strategies aimed at promoting fiscal discipline, interest rate liberalization, privatization, deregulation of entrance and exit barriers, and establishing transparent and public-seeking institutions that are established to enforce and abide by a rule of law that would secure property rights and discourage predatory rent-seeking practices.