Political Vigilantism in Ghana’s Democratic Consolidation: Critical Mass, Political Behavior, and Actor Choices

Abstract

Ghana’s twenty-nine-year-old democracy has passed three ‘turnover’ tests. Though indicative of a consolidating democracy, there is a consistent increase of low intensity electoral violence. The perpetrators of such political violence are politicians acting through vigilante groups affiliated to their political parties. This paper seeks to unravel the puzzle why vigilante-perpetrated electoral violence rises even as Ghana’s democracy consolidates. To answer this, the article utilizes the results of Afrobarometer survey rounds five and seven, data from Countries at Risk of Electoral Violence, and Bob-Milliar’s disaggregate data of electoral violence in Ghana. By a times series analysis, elections were categorized into two cases according to trends in attacks on institutions around elections. Based on this, the hypothesis, “the higher the opposition’s expected benefit of the use of vigilantism, the more electoral violence irrespective the stage of democracy” was tested. Then, the most similar systems design was used to study the relationship between independent economic, institutional, and political culture and actor variables and the dependent variable of democratic consolidation across both cases. The results indicate that vigilante attacks on institutions are more frequent around ‘turnover’ elections. This can be explained if considered that it is a rational behaviour of opposition political actors to attain power at all cost. These political choices have gained root in the absence of a critical mass against it. The danger is that vigilante activities after these elections inform a negative perception about crucial institutions such as the executive (the Presidency and the Ghana Police Service), the judiciary and the legislature. Thus, democracy suffers declining support amongst some Ghanaians. To eliminate political vigilantism in Ghana’s democracy, more Ghanaians need to engage in political discourses to attain the critical mass that forces political actors to make democracy consolidating decisions, including disbanding all vigilante groups in Ghana.