Is Ghana Becoming a Failed State?

The conclusions you will draw will depend on which kind of spectacles or binoculars you are wearing or better still what kind of microscope you are looking into. However, of the one hundred and seventeen countries listed as failed states, Ghana is not one of them. The concept of a failed State was originally created by Americans to suit their own whims and caprices. It is a means of controlling a particular country in order to take advantage of her resources. Very often nation-states fail because they are convulsed by internal violence and can no longer deliver positive leadership and political goods to their inhabitants. In a failed state, the government loses its legitimacy and the very nature of the nation-state itself becomes illegitimate in the eyes and in the hearts of a growing plurality of its citizens.

It is not a new thing for a nation-state to rise and fall. In this era that we find ourselves now, a nation-state constitutes building blocks of legitimate world order. The violent disintegration and palpable weakness of selected African, Asian, Oceanic and Latin American states threaten the very foundation of these systems. It is important to note that Ghana is not included in the African list. Due to anarchy and internal conflicts in these failed states, the international organizations and big powers find themselves stuck disconcertingly in a messy humanitarian relief.

International norms that are desirable such as stability and predictability become difficult to achieve when so many of the globe's newer nation-states waver precariously between weakness and failure, with some truly failing or collapsing. What has become central to critical policy debate is how to respond to the dynamics of failure of nation-states. However, one of the urgent concerns of the twenty first century is the strengthening of weak states and the prevention of state failure. Failed states are typified by deteriorating and destroyed infrastructure. In metaphorical terms, the more potholes of difficulty a country has, the more the country exemplifies failure.

Ghana does not fall under any definition of a failed state. A strong emphasis is laid in the literature of failed states on certain indications that are necessary, if not sufficient, to categorize a nation as failed. Three important indicators (could) can be identified:

i. The persistence of political violence. Such states are tense, deeply confused (wrong word, find better word – involved?, immersed?, engulfed? – but not “confused”) in conflicts, dangerous and bitterly divided by warring factions. It is important to note that, the absolute intensity of violence in a particular state does not determine a failed state, but rather it is the endurance of that violence and a host of other things already mentioned. Angola, Sudan and Burundi are good examples.

ii. The second indicator relates to mass starvation of the entire population. This is when people including farmers run away leaving their farms behind.

iii. A third and final indicator of failure is closely related to the growth of, and the presence of gangs, criminal syndicates, arms and drug trafficking.

As a result of a particular state's inability to provide security from violent non-state actors, an idea was suggested that it was possible to rank failures according to the dimensions in which a state fails.

Ghana is a democratic country where one can speak his or her mind without fear of arrest. Ghana's Gross Development Product (GDP) is one of the best in Africa. The country has never experienced prolonged violence or civil war. These, among others, are a proof that Ghana is not becoming a failed state. The case at the Supreme Court even shows the extent Ghana's democracy has gone. There is no way Ghana will be a failed state since the conditions that give rise to failure are non-existent in Ghana and there are no indications that such conditions will ever prevail in Ghana.

Written by: Stephen Atta Owusu

Author: Dark Faces At Crossroads

Email:stephen.owusu@email.com