Paradoxes of Local Self-governance: Legitimation Strategies of Rural Councillors Under National and Global Influences in Africa

Abstract

Since the 1980s, local self-organization and local self-governance are seen as the core elements for autonomously organized rural transformation. Against this background, it is surprising that both elements hardly have been analysed together. Neither have local councillors as formally, the key actors of local democracy, gained particular research interest. We will tackle this research gap drawing on the institutional arrangement in rural Ghana and examine the multiple entanglements of self-governance and self-organization through the prism of rural councillors. Their interfaces with state, external, and self-organized local actors unearth the mutual instrumentalization and legitimation of local self-organization, the state, and outside entities. We can hardly delineate the individual agency of these actors. On the one hand, the councillors have a relatively weak political influence over the local administration. On the other hand, their formal political roles and social relations offer them the chance to act as brokers for external development actors. The councillors’ brokerage remains vital for both self-help groups and the local administration, despite occurring in the twilight of local autonomy and state control.

This chapter is based on the research project “‘In the shadows of autonomy’: Decentralization, municipal decision-makers and local contexts in Ghana and Rwanda” (NE640/9-1) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).