2 - State Building in the Forestry and Cocoa Sectors of Ghana: Relations between state, chiefs and farmers

This paper compares state-citizen relations in the cocoa and forestry in Ghana.  The study compares the relationship between state institutions, farmers and traditional rulers in both sectors. The objective is to explore the nature of control over resources, and the class alliances and configurations that emerge around the exploitation of resources and claims of ownership on resources.  The study examines the relationship between the forms governance takes and the economic and social relations of production in the two sectors.  The resources include land, timber, non-timber forest resources, and agricultural crops.  A state corporation controls the international marketing of cocoa. This works closely with transnational firms to regulate smallholder production. In contrast the international timber trade is controlled by private concessions, and farmers are excluded from participating in the timber trade, although many recent programmes promote cultivation of timber by farmers.

The study examines the specific configurations of governance within the two sectors and places this within a historical framework that explores how various policies, laws, regulations, and institutions have emerged and been transformed in various epochs.  The study examines the role and interests of traditional rulers in controlling land, redistributing land to commercial sectors, and supporting the interests of a landowning class that extracts revenues from the control of land. It examines the relationships between different categories of farmers, rural elites, commercial sectors, and the state. It investigates how dominant economic interests and alliances within the cocoa and timber sectors shape the institutional forms that governance takes.