Continuity and Change in Ghana's Welfare State

• In Event: Building State Legitimacy

Abstract

This paper traces the evolution of the welfare state in Ghana. Since 2005, the government has rapidly implemented a number of welfare programs, including national health insurance and cash transfers for the poor. Scholars have generally assumed that this period of welfare expansion was driven by aid donors. However, this fails to explain why two successive ruling parties, with different ideologies and geographic bases, both played significant roles in the post-2005 expansion of the welfare state. I show that donors have played a role in building consensus around the continued existence of these programs through changes of government, but that each party has preferentially allocated funding towards welfare programs which benefit its base.

Author

• Rachel Strohm, UC Berkeley