Abstract
This article attempts to explain why, despite nearly identical cultural and economic landscapes and the potentially homogenizing pressures of globalization, social policies differ in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, two neighboring countries in West Africa. In Ghana, the government has generally attempted to strengthen the informal social welfare systems of the extended family and community through a more decentralized social policy, whereas the government in Côte d'Ivoire has tried to replace these informal social networks with the centralized arm of the bureaucracy. The article shows how different legacies of colonial rule produce these divergent social policies in a complex and iterative process over time. While domestic institutions do mediate the effects of globalization, the domestic factors highlighted in this article are not the formal political institutions cited in most studies. Rather, the analysis reveals the critical role of informal institutions, or normative frameworks, that existed under colonial rule and continue to endure in the post-colonial state. The article also contributes to current theories of institutions by showing how formal and informal institutions dynamically interact in the construction of the state and the African family.
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Additional information
Lauren Morris MacLean received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley and will be a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Research Scholar at the University of Michigan from 2002–2004. Her current research examines poverty, social policy, and social support networks, focusing on the rural poor in Africa and the U.S.
The author gratefully acknowledges the support of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and grants from the Social Science Research Council, Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the University of California-Berkeley's African Studies Center.
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MacLean, L.M. Constructing a social safety net in Africa: An institutionalist analysis of colonial rule and state social policies in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. St Comp Int Dev 37, 64–90 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686231
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686231