Emergent Programmatic Politics and Gradual Demise of Neopatrimonial Tendencies * in Ghana’s Electoral Democracy

Many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa experienced regime change after the thawing of the cold war. Ghana like other countries in the sub-region, arranged for multiparty elections to displace years of authoritarian rule. After three decades of the second independence, the Africanist literature on electoral politics has generated a debate on the continuity of neopatrimonialism, weak parties and voting intentions largely based on ethnic and clientelistic tendencies. But there have been relevant works that have challenged these narratives. Relying on secondary literature, online news items, centre for democratic development (CDD) pre-election survey and some field notes, this article positions it itself within the ongoing debate by challenging the simplistic narratives how Ghana’s democracy has spurred neopatrimonialism, where parties are weak and present no credible policy positions and thus the linkage mechanism between voters and parties are predominantly ethnic and clientelistic. It argues that for about three decades after the third wave of democratization, there is an emergent programmatic politics in Ghana.


Introduction
Against a backdrop of mired economic development which significantly emanated from politics of Africa's post-colonial state: for example, political instabilities with prevalent coups, weak political institutions, autocracy, neopatrimonial tendencies, such as the concentration of power in the "big man", patronage, clientelistic and spoil politics (Bates, 1981;Aidoo, 2008, Chabal & Daloz, 1999Allen, 1995), a development discourse which culminated in a consensus emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s. That democracy with multiparty elections, strong institutions and good governance were possible solutions to Africa's developmental challenges (Abrahamsen, 2000;World Bank, 1981). Thus, initially, home of three electoral democracies-Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius (Bratton & Van de Walle, 1997); Ghana, like other sub-Saharan African countries experienced regime change and arranged for multiparty elections in the 1990s after the end of the cold war (Wahman, 2014;Bratton & Van de Walle, 1997). Since the 1990s, de jure multi-party elections have increased twelvefold in Africa (Cooper, 2018: p. 193). Eight repetitive and highly competitive elections have taken place in Ghana, which the 2020 elections remain the latest. Currently, there are twenty-nine registered political parties in Ghana 1 . More importantly, Ghana's electoral democracy has been touted as a beacon of political excellence and thus a model worth emulating for other sub-Saharan countries. This notwithstanding, existing scholarships present that Ghana's multiparty politics has exacerbated and thus rekindled the flame of neopatrimonialism with its clientelistic, ethnic and populist associates (Lindberg, 2003;Kheefer & World Bank, 2005;Arthur, 2009;Jockers et al., 2010;Fridy, 2007;Nugent, 2001).
This article critically examines whether Ghana has a consolidated programmatic politics or the political system is still a neopatrimonial one. It contributes to the broader Africanist literature on electoral politics by challenging the predominant and simplistic narratives on theoretical and empirical explanations for Ghana's ethnic and clientelistic posture in party alignment and outcomes during elections. It argues that for about three decades after the third wave of democratization, there is an emergent programmatic politics in Ghana. While some of the sweeping narratives on existing non-programmatic linkages may be true; however, years after democratic consolidation, there has been a significant paradigm shift regarding how programmatic Ghana's body politic has become. This is because as Huntington (1991) and Sartori (1986) project, areas where democracies are in the early stages of development, social cleavages, clientelistic and other non-evaluative tendencies can become the basis of electoral decisions, but as there is a movement towards consolidation and development, voter party linkage primarily based on "Programmaticity" emerges (Kitschelt & Wilkinson, 2007). This paper largely relies on the secondary literature, online news items, Centre for democratic development (CDD) pre-election survey and some field 1 This research only sheds light on the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National democratic congress (NDC), since they have dominated the political landscape and have alternated political power since the inception of the fourth republic. notes in 2016. The next section reviews the literature on electoral politics in Africa to provide an overview of relevant trends on elections, voting intentions and political parties. This, therefore, creates a space for this essay in Ghana to contribute to the literature and challenge the dominant and oversimplified narratives on African politics. Afterward, I provide a conceptual framework for understanding programmatic politics. The final part provides a discussion with significant evidence on the programmatic nature of Ghana's body politic as a relevant critique to the scholarly debates on how neopatrimonialism has taken shape in Ghana's political system.

Electoral Politics in Africa
African politics reveals varied dynamics especially regarding issues on elections, political parties and voting intentions. For instance, some scholars argue that elections tend to be rigged, with the use of state resources as patronage, politicization of ethnicity and intimidation of opposition parties. Thus, ruling elites in authoritarian states like Cameroun, Burundi, Uganda, Rwanda and Gabon entrench themselves in power (Gyimah-Boadi, 2007;Cheeseman, 2019). Gyimah-Boadi argues further that, elections in Africa suffer from weakness of their own separate from but related to the weakness of political parties (Gyimah-Boadi, 2007, p. 27). On parties in Africa, vast majority of the literature show a pessimistic and disappointing narrative, with respect to the fact that, as Vicky Randall and Lars Svasand put it, "it is much more difficult to find positive accounts of the contributions of political parties in Africa" (Randall & Svasand, 2002: p. 32).
Weaknesses have been the catch-all phrase used to characterize African parties.
"weakness" pathology stem from ineffectiveness in organization, widespread diffusion of systems dominated by one party, fragmentation and ineffective opposition, clientelistic networks, ethnic identities as basis for party mobilization, weak policy making capacity of new parties, and the general low level of institutionalization of party systems, strong and hegemonic leadership with poorly developed internal democracy Internal democracy (Fomunyoh, 2001;Olukoshi, 1998;Carothers, 2006;Gyimah-Boadi, 2007;Randall & Svasand, 2002;Erdmann, 2004;Carbone, 2007;Van de Walle & Butler, 1999). Van de Walle and Butler (1999) with evidence from Zambia reveal the supposedly insignificance of programmatic appeals in elections as, the National Lima party (NLP) continuously performed poorly with campaign based on programmes. It is then as suggested and concluded by some scholars, that ethno-regional and clientelistic interest are the most rational strategy for political parties in aggregating social interest and mobilizing votes (Horowitz, 2000;Erdmann, 2004).
Given supposedly core feature of African politics-Neopatrimonialism (Chabal & Daloz, 1999;Bratton & Van de Walle, 1997), does the African voter deviate from this network of relationship or embrace it? Some scholars advance voting intentions in Africa to surrounded ethnicity and clientelism (Lindberg, 2003;Van de Walle, 2003;Arriola, 2012;Horowitz, 2000). Michael Cowen and Open Journal of Political Science Liisa Laakso find that, no African study of election study can be seriously complete without an analysis of bribery of voters. Voters own account of elections stressed with much humor, the memory of elections as personal boom-time occasions (Cowen & Laakso, 2002). Lindberg (2003) finds how electoral democracy has spurred clientelism in Ghana as voters rely on exchange of popular support for material incentives. Wantchekon (2003) studying voting behavior in Benin finds clientelism as predominant in shaping voters' choice and preferences.
However, Chris Allen cautions against overgeneralization in understanding African politics (Allen, 1995). Elections have facilitated the growth of political parties that contest elections freely and competitively where in some cases have resulted in power turnover. Although a continent of strong incumbency advantage (Cheeseman, 2010: p. 140), yet, there have been a handful of opposition victories since 1989, for example, in Benin, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nigeria, Liberia, Zambia, Senegal, the Gambia, and Sierra Leone. Recent works (Elischer, 2013;Arriola, 2012;Riedl, 2014;Pitcher, 2012;Whitfield, 2009;Resnick, 2012) as cited by Riedl (2018: p. 43), challenge the many simplistic claims of weak parties in Africa by demonstrating variations in party strength, types of parties and institutionalization that exist across the continent. For example, Anja Osei advances on how institutionalized, well-organized and strong political parties in Ghana are-specifically the NDC and NPP (Osei, 2016). Also, in Mozambique parties appear to be more disciplined and national in character (Pitcher 2012: 161-166 as cited in Osei (2016). Concerning Gunther and Diamond's classifications-ethnic and clientelistic parties; African parties have conveyed the image of patronage and tribal politics in academic discourse (Gunther & Diamond 2003;Carbone, 2007). Even to accept this kind of argument, these assertions are made ahistorically-the nature and situation on how ethnicity evolved, shaped and hardened under colonial rule leaves much to be desired (Posner, 2005;Cheeseman, 2018: p. 22). Sebastian Elischer also reveals variations where ethnic parties dominate in some countries, non-ethnic parties have become the norm in others and thus show that African political landscape is more diverse than conventionally assumed (Elischer, 2013). Ichino and Nathan (2016), Osei (2016), Daddieh and Bob-Milliar (2012) explore the interaction between formal and informal party structures, internal party democracy, general distribution of power within parties and how parties adopt policy platforms and appeal to electorates programmatically (Bleck & Van de Walle, 2011;Cheeseman & Larmer, 2015) relative to the clientelist myth. For example, in opposition victories in Ghana and Nigeria are attributed to largely state economic level performance and the various perceptions of the national economy influenced the electoral outcome, effective party organisation, credible commitments in broad policies presented by parties (LeVan et al., 2018: p. 433;Bob-Milliar & Paller, 2018;Owusu Nsiah, 2020a;Gyampo et al., 2017;Owusu Nsiah, 2020b).
On voting intentions, Young (2009) (Gadjanova, 2017). Lindberg and Morrison (2008) contend that the African voter is evaluative when it comes to electoral choices. Against this backdrop, this essay with evidence of emergent programmatic politics in Ghana contributes to the above debate as it challenges the dominant narrative on how neopatrimonial framework has taken center stage in Africa's electoral politics.

Programmatic Politics: A Conceptual Framework
Programmatic politics emerges and develops in a democratic state and theoretically antithetical to clientelist, ethnic and personalistic dynamics. Democracy in its minimalist explanation and procedural terms, demonstrates "the institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for peoples vote" (Schumpeter, 1942 (Dalton, 2014;p. 33;Lindberg, 2006). It determines who manages the affairs of government makes policy (Dalton, 2014). Thus, the selection of leaders, along with the ability to "throw the rascals out" at the next elections, remains the public's penultimate power (Ibid). Therefore, with programmatic politics, the fulfilment of competitive and participatory elections' mandate as the core institution of representative democracy is fully dependent on the linkage mechanisms between voters (electorates) and political parties (Kitschelt, 2000;Lindberg & Morrison, 2008).
Political parties are relevant institutions and a point of call when discussing programmatic politics. For successful workings of democratic representation and thus devoid of parties, democracy is unthinkable save terms as they are significant and fundamental to the sustenance of democracy (Schattschneider, 1942). James Bryce also adds that "parties are inevitable". No one has shown how representative government could be worked without them' (Bryce, 1921: p. 119). In a programmatic political system, political parties are ideally "programmatic". The international institute for democratic and electoral assistance (IDEA) in one of its publication titled "politics meets policies", Cheeseman and his colleagues find that, programmatic parties are considered to have: a collective policy positions that constitutes a well-structured and stable political program by which the party is publicly known; internal coherence and agreement on a range of policy positions; commitment and the ability to deliver on at least some key programmatic promises when in a position of power; party programs that is the most defining element in how it attracts and engages its members (Cheeseman et Open Journal of Political Science al., 2014, p. 12). Cheeseman and Paget (2014: p. 75) argue that, programmatic parties generate policies and engage in mobilization of support in terms of vote based on ideologically-driven significant policies. They further contend, unlike clientelistic parties, programmatic ones, do not significantly mobilize support through patron-client networks with the distribution of private and material incentives and thus disassociate from establishing ties between voters based on specific leaders and also based ethnic identities (Ibid). Programmatic parties are organisationally strong and have "reasonably strong ideological or programmatic commitments" (Gunther & Diamond, 2003: p. 37). Thus, the power behind political parties' electoral success and their long-term survival in the political arena is their party organization (Panebianco, 1988). With a strong organization, parties reap greater success in recruiting quality candidates. This is because; the capacity of the party to function in a competitive electoral system is conditioned to a significant degree on the range and quality of candidates running under the party label (Cotter et al., 1984: p. 7). Strong parties can more effectively formulate policy, cope with environmental challenges, and account rationally for their actions than weak parties (Tavits, 2012: p. 84).
On the other hand, programmatic politics also depends on the sophisticated and evaluative nature (voter behaviour) of the principals ( nale that should be behind electoral choices must be programmatic (Kitschelt, 2000). As Key (1949) points out, the underlying explanation for evaluative rationales is policy-vote-congruence.
Drawing on the above perspectives, I summarize that "programmatic politics" which takes place in a democratic political system entails the dynamics of activities where parties with ideological congruence (set of beliefs and abstract principles) that inform policy and well-structured cardinal plan that embodies their coherent and consistent party programmes, engages an evaluative or sophisticated citizenry in issue-based politics and thus create voter linkages by making broad national credible commitments to the people in order to obtain mandate to ascend the reins of government.

Ghana: Programmatic or a Neopatrimonial Politics?
In direction. For example, one scholar argues, the rural electrification project by the NDC under President Rawlings did not make economic sense and thus were deliberately made to target specific groups for votes (Brobbey, 2013). Interestingly, it is also argued that when parties are in power, they deliberately develop programmes to win votes because they cannot sustain the patron-client networks because they are out of power (Aidoo, 2008). But are these sweeping generaliza- Based on the conceptual framework that has been laid, I demonstrate and argue for the programmatic nature of Ghana's body politic.

Emergent Programmatic Politics
In Ghana's open and highly competitive electoral system, the NPP and NDC have demonstrated dominance at the expense of other minor parties (Yobo & Gyampo, 2015). This has created a system of a defacto "two partysm" (Daddieh & Bob-Milliar, 2012). More importantly, the reason for the dominance of the NPP and NDC stem from the highly institutionalized party system with low levels of volatility and an alternating majority between these two strong parties (Riedl, 2014: p.   Offinso Youth invoke curses on party executives. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/NPP-primaries-Offinso-NPP-youth-in voke-curses-on-party-executives-971362. Open Journal of Political Science ther, he argues that, in the 2008 elections, the "NDC"s "I care for you" manifesto message and making poverty reduction the main focus of its campaign promises, touting investment in people, jobs, the economy and making government more transparent and accountable (Ayee, 2011: p. 375), resonated well with the electorates and had impacts in their victory. Even though the documents include short-medium-and long-term plans, the manifestos are largely seen as promises and specific strategic policy initiatives to be implemented within a four-year term (Ayee, 2009). Majority of the broad policies and national programmes that were promised by both the NPP and NDC have been carried out. Ayee (2011) The NPP promised a radical transformation of the national economy, with job creation at the top of its agenda. Its flagship policy of "one dam, one village", "one district, one factory" and the "Free senior high education", improvement in agricultural production in the northern savannah and to give jobs to unemployed youth resonated with the voters. They also adopted a decentralised campaign where local structures identified context specific problems within constituencies that needed to be addressed (Bob-Milliar & Paller, 2018: p. 20). Through campaign tours and several rallies these two and other minor (Yobo & Gyampo, 2015) political parties espoused their cardinal plans and thus well-articulated programmes for the ordinary Ghanaian to choose from.

On Voting Intentions
There is an emergent programmatic politics which significantly is also dependent on the evaluative rationales of electorates. Lindberg and Morrison (2008) in a cross-national survey research found that, clientelism and ethnic voting (non-evaluative rationales) are minor features of the Ghanaian electorate. Ghanaians employ retrospective and prospective evaluations as guiding principles to renew mandates or "throw the rascals out". They assess the socio-economic conidiations and review the policy commitments of parties or politicians before choosing a party or politician to vote for (CDD, 2016; see Figure 1).
Substantiating the programmatic or evaluative nature of electorates, for example, in 2008, Mr. Doe Adjaho, the former MP for Ave-Avenor constituency received open resentments from the youth and promised to vote against him. This was because he had neglected his responsibilities and largely reneged on his developmental promises to improving the lives of people in the constituency 5 .  Hajia Alima Mahama, in her bid to seek re-election in NPP's primaries to retain her seat as the MP for Gambaga-Nalerigu constituency, met the wrath of the constituents. They lamented that; she had not honored the promises on welfare policies and thus neglected the constituency. Thus, they were prepared to throw her out in the primaries 6 . Also, in 2013, the youth of Atwima Nwabiagya south registered their displeasure and disappointments on the poor and careless attitude of their MP, Owusu Bio Benito, towards development and improvement of the lives of the people in the constituency 7 . The volta region has been stereotyped by voting on ethnic lines and nothing else. However, in the build up towards the 2016 elections showed a contradictory spectacle. The chiefs and the youth of volta region criticized the Mahama-led administration for the lack of commitment to tackling developmental issues that confront the people. They strongly decided to prevent any political activity and pledged that their votes will be "decided on issues and issues only". Togbe Afede XIV further added that, politics is not an end in itself; "it must bring development and happiness to the people, not a select few". It must create an opportunity for all, whether in NPP or NDC 8 . For instance in 2016, during the elections, I was engaged in a conversion with one native of the central region who stayed around Oforikrom constituency in the Ashanti region. She said: The central region is a swing region because both the NPP and NDC dominate over there. However, irrespective of our partisanship what we do is that we totally assess your work and vote (Field notes 2016).
In 2015, 200 NDC youth activists in the Asawase constituency in the Ashanti region (one of NDC's strongholds) "crossed the carpet" to the main opposition NPP. According to these youth, the decision of defection to the NPP was born out of the fact that the NDC was unable to solve the harsh economic situation the country faces and thus saw the NPP as a reliable opposition party. Based on the track records of the NPP it would be a good decision they vote for the NPP in the 2016 elections 9 .
In the CDD's survey on popular opinions conducted across the country which sampled about 2400 respondents in 2016; Ghanaians clearly articulated factors that were likely to influence their voting. An absolute majority of Ghanaians disagreed strongly with voting for parties whose candidates offer gifts, identify with their religious faith and ethnically (see Figure 2). A majority of Ghanaians 6 Nalerigu angry youth chase out Alima Mahama. https://citinewsroom.com/2020/04/nalerigu-angry-youth-allegedly-chase-out-alima-mahama-over-u nfulfilled-promises/. 7 Angry youth descend on Benito. https://www.modernghana.com/news/458879/angry-youth-descends-on-atwima-nwabiagya-south.h tml. Open Journal of Political Science Source: CDD, 2016. Figure 2. Voting on the basis of regional, religious or personal material benefits.
(57%) endorse voting for the parliamentary candidate who would make policies that benefit everyone in the country. However, nearly 4 in every 10 Ghanaians say they will vote for candidates who can deliver goods and services to people in their communities (CDD, 2016).

Conclusion
Africa is a politically polarised continent. Some countries have institutional- While existing literature argues that the transition to the democratic system of government has exacerbated neopatrimonial tendencies, this work has argued otherwise. In this work, I have argued that, in almost three decades of democratization, Ghana's political system has embraced institutionalised programmatic politics. In this form of institutionalisation, there is a paradigm shift, where political parties have strong internal party democracy, develop credible programmes and broad policy commitments and engage in civic debates about the economy. More importantly, programmatic politics also depends on the linkage mechanisms between electorates and parties. For programmatic politics, the principals (electorates, voters) are sophisticated, knowledgeable about the state of the economy, their socio-economic status, and make retrospective and prospective evaluations about government, political parties, elected officials (e.g., MPs) before casting their votes. Predominantly, with the pieces of evidence provided, demonstrate that Ghana has a programmatic politics. Yet, there are subtle occurrences of clientelism and, patronage and ethnic voting.
But these are minor features in Ghana's body politic.

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.