Peacekeeping Experiences and Institutional Change in the Ghana Armed Forces

Abstract

The study examines how professional and medical experiences of peacekeeping shape the structures and personnel of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF). Peacekeeping has become a key feature of the global governance and security architecture. Since the 1960s, the GAF has contributed troops, military observers, military staff officers, and mission experts to peacekeeping as part of Ghana’s foreign policy towards global peace and good neighbourliness. Peacekeeping exposes the GAF to war contexts and conflict environments with multiple and varied implications for the institution and soldiers. I argue that individual and collective experiences and lessons from peacekeeping are harnessed through advocacy, personal initiatives, introspection, uptake, and self styled management to shape the evolutionary processes of the GAF. Thus, structures and soldier behaviour change as the GAF comes under normative pressures, coercion, and mimesis, which interact with domestic events and internal practices to create institutional change consistent with sociological institutionalism. I adopted a qualitative case study design comprising multiple methods – interviews (67), focus group discussions (5FGDs), informal conversations (11ICIs), observations, and document review – to gather data from primary and secondary sources in Accra and Takoradi. Thematic analysis was done manually and with NVivo software. We find that peacekeeping significantly influences administrative structures, establishment of select units, recruitment decisions, deployment of women, and training in GAF. Peacekeeping also shapes personnel attitudes, career choices, health decisions, practice of their military profession, and preparedness for eventualities. Peacekeeping is therefore a major factor in the transformational processes in the GAF. The study makes empirical, theoretical, and policy contributions and offers recommendations for policy and future research.