University of Calgary Press

About the Book

Bringing new perspectives to the role of traditional leadership within democratic systems of local government from a cross-disciplinary perspectives, Grassroots Governance? establishes a baseline for best practices in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean.

Traditional leadership is a factor that has long been overlooked in evaluations of rural local government in much of contemporary Sub-Saharan Africa.

Grassroots Governance? is an interdisciplinary and intercontinental collection that addresses this gap in African scholarship and brings new perspectives on the integration, or reconciliation, of traditional leadership with democratic systems of local government.

Articles from the fields of political science, law, postcolonial studies, anthropology, cultural studies, and policy and administrative studies establish a baseline for best practice in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean while taking into account the importance of traditional leadership to the culture of local governance.

Case studies are drawn from Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, and Commonwealth countries in West, East, and Southern Africa, as well as Jamaica.

About the Editors

Donald I. Ray is a professor in the department of political science at the University of Calgary. He is also the International Coordinator of the Traditional Authority Applied Research Network (TAARN).

P.S. Reddy is a professor in the School of Governance, University of Durban-Westville, Durban, South Africa. He is currently the project director of the Working Group on Local Governance and Development of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA), headquartered in Brussels.

With Contributions By: P.S. Reddy, Donald I. Ray, Christine Owusu-Sarpong, Charles Crothers, Robert Thornton, Tim Quinlan, Malcolm Wallis, Lungisile Ntsebeza, Werner Zips, Keshav C. Sharma, B.B. Biyela, and Carl Wright.

Table of Contents

 

Summary
Preface by P.S. Reddy

Rural Local Governance and Traditional Leadership in Africa and the Afro–Caribbean: Policy and Research Implications from Africa to The Americas and Australia

Donald I. Ray

Setting the Ghanaian Context of Rural Local Government: Traditional Authority Values
Christine Owusu–Sarpong

Social Characteristics of Traditional Leaders and Public Views on their Political Roles
Charles Crothers

Ghana: Traditional Leadership and Rural Local Governance
Donald I. Ray

Chiefs: Power in a Political Wilderness
Robert Thornton

Local Governance in Lesotho: The Central Role of Chiefs
Tim Quinlan and Malcolm Wallis

Traditional Authorities, Local Government and Land Rights
Lungisile Ntsebeza

"We Rule the Mountains and They Rule the Plains": The West African Basis of Traditional Authority in Jamaica
Werner Zips

Traditional Leadership and Rural Local Government in Botswana
Keshav C. Sharma

Rural Local Government and Development: A Case Study of Kwazulu–Natal: Quo Vadis?
P.S. Reddy and B.B. Biyela

What Role for Traditional Leadership in the "Pluralistic State" in Africa?
Carl Wright