Wisdom J. Tettey

The Politics of Media Accountability in Africa: An Examination of Mechanisms and Institutions

The media have had a positive impact on democratization in Africa as conduits for political education, watchdogs of political accountability and forums for civic engagement. These developments notwithstanding, some critics characterize the media less sanguinely, highlighting attitudes that portray them as irresponsible, self-serving, unaccountable and a threat to the credibility and sustenance of the democratic process. In the context of the foregoing, this article evaluates various mechanisms of media accountability in Africa, and concludes that they are fraught with tensions among various political interests. It argues that state-controlled mechanisms of accountability are not always conducive to democracy, because they could be subject to abuse. There is, therefore, the need for the media themselves to put in place procedures and demonstrate attitudes and levels of performance that ensure the highest standards of professionalism and levels of probity and accountability.

Introduction: New Media and Democracy in Africa—A Critical Interjection

The advent of new media technology in Africa, in the 1990s, sparked celebratory, almost utopian bliss in its proponents. It was accompanied by the hype about the continent’s possibility of “leapfrogging” some stages of development, as though the whole process of development had been rendered less problematic. A linearity of progress was assumed, almost uncritically positing new media technology as deterministic of social progress. Yet, after over a decade of the emergence of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), the old questions about access, inequality, power, and the quality of information available are still valid (cf. Fourie, 2001). This calls for a more critical rethink of the social and political impact of new technologies on the African polity. This book makes a significant contribution to the discourse around these questions by bringing together a collection of chapters that explore the correlation between new media technology and democracy in Africa, as well as the nature of their juxtaposition with “old” or “traditional” media. To set the context for these analyses, this introductory chapter provides a critical analysis of the conceptual and theoretical debates surrounding the new media/political engagement/democratic participation/good-governance nexus, and anchors them in the specific reality of the African situation.

Computerization, institutional maturation, and qualitative change: analysis of a Ghanaian public corporation

Abstract This article uses the social interactionist conceptual framework to analyse computerization in the Volta River Authority, a public corporation in Ghana. It first analyses the initial phase of ICT adoption in the organization, and shows how limited personnel skills, unplanned and uncoordinated innovations, and overwhelming organizational defects resulted in the inability of the technology to produce intended results. The article then proceeds to discuss how these initial problems were dealt within the subsequent phase to produce more positive outcomes. Reasons for this success included comprehensive feasibility studies, departmental representation in planning, and corporate support for the technologies at the highest organizational levels. It suggests, however, that certain socio‐cultural, political and organizational problems continue to hinder effective use of ICTs. Based on these findings the article concludes that institutions should be understood as social systems with contingent configurations of reality that determine the success or failure of technological innovations. The unique contingencies that constitute a particular system should, therefore, be taken into account when designing, adopting, and implementing innovations. This is not only to ensure the sensitivity of the innovations to the social milieux into which they are planted, but also to address any militating factors that might constrain the effectiveness of the innovations.

State‐NGO relations in an era of globalisation: the implications for agricultural development in Africa

The crisis of the African state has been a dominant feature of the continents socio‐political and development discourse in the last two decades. In a region where agriculture is the engine of development and the state plays an active role in agriculture, the crisis of the state has created a vacuum in the institutional framework required for agricultural development. Nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), consistent with globalisation, have emerged and filled the vacuum as viable institutions for agricultural development. This study examines State‐NGO relations during globalisation and the implications of that relationship for agricultural development in Africa. Exploring the socio‐political context of such relations, especially the nature of investment in the agricultural sector, the study shows how the uncertain outcomes of State‐NGO relations, exacerbated by global forces, affect the long‐term prospects of agricultural development in Africa.

Social science research and the Africanist : The need for intellectual and attitudinal reconfiguration

Abstract This paper acknowledges that states in Africa have contributed to the problems confronting social science research on the continent. It argues, however, that the causes of the problem go beyond the state. The paper undertakes an intensive exercise in introspection within the continental and external Africanist communities to explain the problems confronting social science research on the continent. The study identifies several factors as challenges facing research: intellectual distancing of the disciplines from society, the retrogressive sociopolitical atmosphere that characterizes some African universities, and the negative attitudes of individual academics. It argues further that these problems are compounded by the politics surrounding the hierarchical processes of intellectual validation and propagation at the global level. The paper concludes that without a correction of these internal and external deficiencies, it will be difficult to maintain a respectable and beneficial level of research endeavor, integrity, collaboration, and sustainability.

Africa’s Leadership Deficit: Exploring Pathways to Good Governance and Transformative Politics

Observers of Africa lament the failure of the continent to translate the optimism that attended the immediate post-independence period into concrete socio-economic development (Bates, 1981: 6). Various reasons have been adduced to explain this lack of progress, principal among which is the crisis of leadership (Aseka, 2005). Rotberg offers a very damning excoriation of African leadership, contending that the continent ‘has long been saddled with poor, even malevolent, leadership; predatory kleptocrats, military-installed autocrats, economic illiterates, and puffed-up posturers’ (Rotberg, 2004) Obiakor notes that ‘post-colonial Africa has witnessed many leaders who have had more devastating effects on [its] cultural, socioeconomic and political futures’ (Obiakor, 2004: 402). It is clear, therefore, that Nelson Mandela’s attribution of Zimbabwe’s woes to a crisis of leadership (Independent, 2008) can be justifiably extended to the rest of the continent. His assertion is corroborated by the inability of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to find, in the last two years, a retired African political leader who is deserving of its prestigious African Leadership Prize. This development is a serious indictment of the quality of leadership that those at the helm of African countries have provided and, hence, reflected by the poor socioeconomic and political environment that characterizes the human condition on the continent. In the words of Adamoleku (1988: 95):

Regenerating Scholarly Capacity Through Diaspora Engagement: The Case of A Ghana Diaspora Knowledge Network

African countries are constrained by the shallow pool of citizens with the highest possible qualifications in their areas of expertise. This chapter explores the relative merits of the optimistic and sceptical perspectives on diaspora knowledge networks by evaluating one such network that seeks to shore up academic staff capacity in Ghanaian universities and to address challenges facing graduate education through scholarly and pedagogical collaborations. While the commitment is priceless and laudable, overall, the network has made minimal, though valuable, gains. The findings suggest that passion and commitment on the part of a few champions, alone, are not enough. Such initiatives need to be propped up by consistent, coordinated, collaborative institutional commitments and all stakeholders have to play their part for success; otherwise, the social capital that efforts such as the Ghanaian diaspora knowledge network have been able to garner will be diminished, the passion extinguished, and the credibility of subsequent initiatives eroded.

Globalization and Internet Fraud in Ghana

Globalization has had a tremendous impact not only on the speed and organization of transnational interactions among different actors around the world in the social, economic, and political spheres, but has also created, as it interlaces with neoliberalism, constraints on livelihoods as well as new possibilities for subaltern agents to reconfigure their connections to the global (Petras and Veltmeyer 2001). These transformations have produced qualitative shifts in how transnational interactions are organized as they reconfigure the spatiotemporal environment within which those interactions occur (McGrew 2000, 48). “Part of the reason behind the developments noted above are technological innovations that allow the flow of capital and information to traverse physical boundaries with alacrity and to be integrated at an unprecedented level” (Tettey 2006, 33). Granova and Eloff (2004, 7) point out that “one of the most important enabling infrastructures of the globalised economy is without a doubt the Internet. The Internet revolutionized many industries in all corners of the world, with developing countries being no exception.”