The Construction of a “Tipping” Historiography: The 4th Republic and the Public

Abstract

This presentation is an examination of various moments of Ghana’s collective anxiety about its political future. It offers a historiographical analysis of the discourse or commentary regarding these moments of political tension that had or have the potential to descend the country into a den of conflagration, genocide, civil war or ethnic strife as we have recently witnessed elsewhere in Africa. Using Ghana’s own history of Coup d’état’s and military interventions in three constitutional governments as background, it examines how the media, politicians, civic groups, public intellectuals, political parties, musicians and others in the public sphere have engaged election cycles in Ghana’s 4th Republic. It identifies the moments of tension, whiles discussing how the public arena has dealt with the moments of anxiety through publications like “The Stolen Verdict” and the more recent “Pink Sheet” encounter between the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the Supreme Court.