Political determinants of successful structural adjustment: a comparative analysis of Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal

Abstract

ABSTRACT The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of political constraints on economic reform with special reference to Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. The study aims to reveal the idea that there is no prototype African state as many people think and also, to refute the idea that `weak` states cannot successfully implement structural adjustment programs. The study also attempts to find out the relationship between the regime type and a successful implementation of reform; the distributional effects of adjustment packages on the various interest groups and tries to systematically link such distributional consideration to the success or failure of reform efforts. The primary source of information for this research were periodicals, pamphlets and books. I used discriptive and empirical approaches. The findings of the study, based on my comparative analysis of Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, demostrate that there is no prototype African state and that `weak` state with the right enviroment can successfully implement structural adjustment packages iike their `stronger` counterparts. Also, the findings indicate that there is a close association between the regime type, egalitarian distribution of cost and benefits among the various interest groups and large external inflow of resources on the one hand, and successful policy implementation on the other.The findings of this thesis may be useful in terms of clarifying the idea that `weak` states will find it difficult to implement a successful adjustment program and to challenge the belief that there exists a prototype African State.