Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T23:41:01.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attitudes toward Socialism, Policy, and Leadership in Ghana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

James A. McCain
James A. McCain*
Affiliation:
SUNY—Brockport
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Ten years after the exile of Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana, Ghanaians find themselves celebrating a renaissance of Nkrumahism. This is happening after flirtations with two military regimes, an intervening civilian regime, and a current interest in constructing a future Union Government allowing for more political participation by including more civilian groups into the decisional process. There are few programmatic indications that Nkrumah's notions of “scientific socialism” have been incorporated by recent regimes. Yet Nkrumah himself is revered as a hero in Ghanaian culture.

For ten years following Ghana's independence in 1957, Ghanaians were subject to Nkrumah's prolific verbal output concerning “scientific socialism,” consciencism, and Pan-Africanism. The meanings attached to these concepts by Nkrumah, and by his followers, however, remain somewhat ambiguous. This ambiguity is understandable given the fact that Nkrumah's often contradictory writings on the subject of socialism were devoid of the rigor which scholars often associate with the ideology. As derived from Engels, socialism is scientific in the sense that there are laws of history which move the proletariat to challenge the bourgeois order and instigate a successful revolution. Moreover, the forces of production and distribution should ultimately rest with the state which orders the economy in such a way that the profits of industrial enterprise are reinvested in state enterprises, and do not accrue to individuals.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , April 1979 , pp. 149 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abraham, W. E. (1962) The Mind of Africa. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Africa Report (May 1963).Google Scholar
Busia, K. A. (1967) Africa in Search of Democracy. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Coleman, James S. (1960) “Conclusion: The Political Systems of the Developing Areas,” pp. 535–36 in Almond, Gabriel A. and Coleman, James S. (eds.), The Politics of the Developing Areas. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
deGraft Johnson, K. E. (1963) “Africa Roundtable.” Africa Report 7 (May): 19–31.Google Scholar
Deutsch, Karl W. (1961) “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review 55 (September): 497–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Murray. (1967) The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Friedland, William H. and Rosberg, Carl G. (eds.). (1964) African Socialism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ghana News. (31 May 1977).Google Scholar
Grundy, Kenneth. (1968) “The Political Ideology of Kwame Nkrumah,” pp. 66–100 in Skurnik, W.A.E. (ed.), African Political Thought. Denver: International University Booksellers.Google Scholar
Hanna, William John. (1964) “Students,” p. 413 in Coleman, James S. and Rosberg, Carl G. (eds.), Political Parties and National Integration in Tropical Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hayward, Fred M. (1976) “A Reassessment of Conventional Wisdom About the Informed Public: National Political Information in Ghana.” The American Political Science Review 70 (June): 433–51.Google Scholar
Kaunda, Kenneth. (1966) Zambia: Independence and Beyond. London: Nelson.Google Scholar
Levine, Victor. (1975) Political Corruption: The Ghana Case. Stanford: Hoover Institute.Google Scholar
Markovitz, Irving L. (1969) Leopold Sedar Senghor and the Politics of Negritude. New York: Atheneum Publishers.Google Scholar
Mazrui, Ali. (1967) Towards a Pax Africana. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mphalele, Ezekiel. (1964) The African Image. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Nkrumah, Kwane. (1964) Consciencism. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Nkrumah, Kwane. (1970) “African Socialism Revisited,” in Cartey, W. and Kilson, M. (eds.), The African Reader: Independent Africa. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Nyerere, Julius. (1964) “Ujamaa: The Basis of African Socialism,” pp. 238–47 in Friedland, William H. and Rosberg, Carl G. (eds.), African Socialism. Stanford: University of Stanford Press.Google Scholar
O'Barr, William, Spain, David H., and Tessler, Mark A. (eds.). (1973) Survey Research in Africa. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Owusu, Maxwell. (1970) Uses and Abuses of Political Power. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Republic of Ghana. (1970) Statistical Year Book 1969–1970. Accra: State Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Republic of Ghana. (1975) Guidelines for the Five-Year Development Plan 1975–1980. Accra: State Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Senghor, Leopold. (1960-1961) “West Africa in Evolution.” Foreign Affairs 39: 243.Google Scholar
Snyder, Francis G. (1967) “The Political Thought of Modibo Keita.” Journal of Modern African Studies 5 (May): 79–106.Google Scholar
Zolberg, Aristide. (1966) Creating Political Order. Chicago: Rand McNally.Google Scholar