MacLean, Lauren M.: Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire

Abstract

MacLean, Lauren M. Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 292 pp. Lauren MacLean's Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa: Risk and Reciprocity in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, is crafted in eight chapters under three different but related parts addressing various aspects of the of informal and citizenship in four Akan villages two on each side of the Ghana-Cote border. MacLean opens her discussion debunking earlier assumptions that political have always been in crises. She notes that over the last hundred years, the two neighboring West African countries have at different points in time proved to be successful models of democratic and economic development--as compared to many other countries in the sub-region. As such, it will be difficult to understand the various trajectories of their political economies by solely focusing at the macro-level on weakness or exclusively concentrating at the micro-level on the deficits of social capital or missing institutions (p3). This understanding we must seek from an in-depth study of the socio-economic and political dynamics that have shaped these societies since the colonial period. In order to comprehend first-hand the complex processes of socioeconomic and political transformation in the four Akan villages, MacLean adopted an ethnographic approach--living and participating in several village activities. She supplemented the knowledge gained from these activities and interviews that she conducted between October 1996 and October 1999 in both regions, with secondary literatures on and agrarian change to demonstrate the colonial and postcolonial states has had profound effects on village social and political cultures (p.11). This sophisticated methodological approach provided lens through which she attempted to answer two related questions: First, if indeed the Akan villages on both sides of the Ghana--Cote border consider themselves as with shared pre-colonial institutions, culture and history, why did their informal of reciprocity differ so significantly? In other words, why did the ways in which they exchanged help and social support with their nuclear and extended family, clan, friends, neighbors, ethnic group, or others ... (p.4) differ in significant ways? Secondly, how did people in these villages use the differences in their informal of reciprocity to define citizenship? Based on her research findings MacLean attempts to answer these questions challenging previous assumptions about institutions, social capital, and the nature of the African state pointing out that since the Akan villages on both sides of the border consider themselves as one and the same people, diverse histories of colonial and postcolonial formation have shaped the puzzling differences in the informal of social reciprocity and citizenship at the local-level (p.7). In her view, the French policy of assimilation or direct rule created a more centralized and expansive role for the colonial and postcolonial in Cote d'Ivoire and extension, greater volume of informal reciprocal that heavily centered on the nuclear family. In contrast, the British policy of indirect rule which created more decentralized and restricted role for the colonial and postcolonial in Ghana, was associated with much lower volume of informal reciprocal exchange (p. 10). Thus, while villagers on the Ghana side of the border gave much lower support, but to much larger group of people--neighbors, family members and friends, their Ivorian counterparts gave much more help but to smaller group--mostly to members of the immediate nuclear family. In chapter 2, she describes the socio-economic and political organization of the four villages--providing the reader with clear picture of the similarities between them in terms of location, population, infrastructure, architecture, educational facilities and agricultural activities among others. …