DEMOCRATIC SUSTAINABILITY AND CONFLICT RESILIENCE IN GHANA’S DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM

Abstract

Ghana could be described as an island of peace in an ocean of conflicts. This is because most of Ghana’s West African neighbours have experienced (and some are still experiencing) various forms of national civil conflicts which have never occurred in Ghana. In the last three decades, the West Africa sub-region has been plagued with many intra-state conflicts.  In Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, conflicts have escalated into full scale war, bringing with it numerous loss of lives, destruction of property and causing social despair for the citizenry. The peace of some countries like Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and recently Burkina Faso also continues to be threatened by different dissident groups and popular uprisings. While most of these countries’ democracies remain fragile due to the conflicts within these states, Ghana remains one of few examples whose current democratic structures have stood the test of time for the last three decades. This study inquired into Ghana’s conflict resistance capacities and its ability to continue to sustain its democracy as a country.  Mixed methods approach was employed to select 132 community residents from 3 purposefully sampled conflict-prone communities in Ghana, and 5 key informants as well as 462 political party delegates for interviewing and data collection for the study.

The study found that the very nature of Ghana’s internal conflicts with respect to their geographical limitations, the conflict parties involved as well as the issues at stake contribute to confine these internal conflicts within their areas of occurrence. In addition, some conscious social and institutional measures (put in place) in the Ghanaian democratic system help to promote peace and maintain order. Finally, majority of the respondents (63.6%) were of the opinion that Ghana is unlikely to have a national civil war because its democratic institutions are effective. It was suggested that politicians should avoid interfering in local conflicts and increase coverage for peace education programmes and conflict intervention initiatives in the country, among others.