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Ideological dynamics in Ghana’s foreign policy: exploring the interplay between macro-ideologies and contextual ideas
Journal of Political Ideologies, Pages: 1 - 22
Swansea University Author:
Emmanuel Siaw
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© 2024 The Author(s). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1080/13569317.2024.2370976
Abstract
This article contributes to the evolving approaches that demonstrate the adaptability and everydayness of ideologies by exploring how contextual approaches can respond to the nuances of the ideology – foreign policy nexus in the African context and allow for a systematic comparative analysis. Drawin...
| Published in: | Journal of Political Ideologies |
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| ISSN: | 1356-9317 1469-9613 |
| Published: |
Informa UK Limited
2024
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa66838 |
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| Abstract: |
This article contributes to the evolving approaches that demonstrate the adaptability and everydayness of ideologies by exploring how contextual approaches can respond to the nuances of the ideology – foreign policy nexus in the African context and allow for a systematic comparative analysis. Drawing on Jonathan Maynard’s ideology-conflict thesis, Michael Freeden’s ideological morphology, and Marius Ostrowski’s comparative ideological morphology, it challenges the non-ideology thesis in African politics, arguing that the issue lies in the limitation of approaches, not the absence of ideology in foreign policymaking. The article demonstrates this by analyzing Ghana’s economic diplomacy, an area widely seen as non-ideological, across three administrations – Nkrumah, Rawlings and Kufuor. Applying the Ideological Contextualization Framework to the Ghanaian case, I argue that the varieties of Ghanaian nationalism characterized by its historically evolving components partly explain Ghana’s economic diplomacy. While the analysis in this article aims to further enhance the bid to see ideologies as phenomena that are ‘necessary, normal, and [which] facilitate (and reflect) political action’,Footnote1 it is a call for further empirical application of contextual frameworks. It also demonstrates the potential of ideology to open analytical spaces for a better understanding of the dynamics of agency and dependency in Africa’s international relations. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Funders: |
Swansea University |
| Start Page: |
1 |
| End Page: |
22 |