Education and support for political authorities and institutions among urban africans:the case Of Kumasi, Ghana

Abstract

This thesis investigates the extent of support for military leaders and the military institution, civil service leaders and the civil service, and indigenous leaders and institutions among a sample of individuals, grouped into five levels of educational attainment, from the City of Kumasi, Ghana. An investigation of citizens' attitudes towards leaders and institutions is a necessary background for the comprehension of the crisis of leadership and institutional fragility which bedevil the body politic of many African states. The study also draws on respondents' orientations toward indigenous leadership and institutions and toward the modern leadership and institutions of the military plus the civil service, to test a new model of political allegiance. This new conceptual model of political alle­giance posts that in a political system such as Ghana which is characterized by an ebullient indigenous polity as well as by a modern state-centered polity, a citizen must be allegiance to both leadership and institutional sectors. This stipulation is a corrective to the displacement thesis which envisages proper political allegiance in culturally dualistic political systems as entailing the severance of attachments to the indigenous polity and the concomitant embrace of the modern polity. Furthermore, the study develops a path model of support for each of the three leadership and institu­tional subtypes. A sample of 905 Kumasi citizens responded to Like the­ type questions regarding their attitudes towards the three leadership and institutional subtypes. Analysis of variance based on five educational groups (no formal education, primary educated, secondary educated, 6th Form educated and university educated) disclosed formal education makes a significant differ­ence in support for each of the three types of leaders and institutions considered in this study. A test of differences between pairs of means, and use of the grand mean for each leadership and institution, revealed that groups with secondary education and above were significantly less supportive of both military leaders and institution and indigenous leaders and insti­tutions than the two groups with no formal education and with primary education. For civil service leaders and the civil service institution, those with secondary education and below were significantly less supportive than the two groups with 6th Form and university educa­tion. Thus, a mass-elite gap exists in leadership and institutional preferences among Kumasi respondents. The new model of-political allegiance found empirical support in Kumasi. There were respondents in all the four categories of the model. The addition of a synthetic-adaptive category, which designates indivi­duals who simultaneously support both indigenous and modern polities, is a significant new contribution to the theoretical literature. The significance of the path model rests on its identi­fication of formal education, length of urban residence and political efficacy as the three important determinants of orientations towards political leaders and institu­tions.Formal education has a negative influence on support for the military and for the indigenous polity, but has a positive impact on support for the civil ser­vice wavelengths of urban residence is not really a determinant of support for the military, it has negative influence on support for the civil service and a positive effect on support for indigenous institutions. Political efficacy has little effect on support for the civil service, but has strong positive impact on support for both the military and indigenous institutions. The findings for Kumasi are suggestive and spell a need for replication of the study at the national level; the validity of the Kumasi results should also be examined for other countries. All future replications will need to overcome some conceptual and methodological shortcomings of this study.