(Page 1 of 34) - Economies of Affection in Crisis: How the �Weak� State Transforms Informal Institutions in Africa authored by Morris, Lauren.

Economies of Affection in Crisis:

How the ‘Weak’ State Transforms Informal Institutions in Africa

Lauren Morris MacLean

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Research Fellow

University of Michigan

109 Observatory, SPH-II, M2224

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2029

tel. 734-936-1297; fax. 734-936-9813

## email not listed ##

Prepared for Presentation at the

Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,

August 28-31, 2003, Philadelphia, PA

Abstract

This paper uses Goran Hyden’s conceptual framing of the economy of affection to
analyze recent changes in informal social support networks in rural Ghana and Cote
d’Ivoire. First, the paper finds that the economy of affection is much less extensive and
vibrant, even in rural areas, than is frequently presumed by scholars and policymakers.
Surprisingly, many Africans do not participate in any type of social support network, and
when they do, the amount of help exchanged is very minimal and under increasingly
stringent terms. Second, d rawing on Hyden’s typology of economy of affection-related
institutional forms, the paper reveals how different legacies of state social and economic
policies during a continuing economic crisis have transformed the mix of “pooling”
versus “clientelist” forms of informal institutions of social support in divergent ways in
the two cases. In Ghana, while state social policies aimed at reinforcing extended family
systems were relatively ineffective, economic policies encouraged the diversification of
horizontal pooling between friends of the same age cohort, not necessarily the same
family, class or ethnicity. Meanwhile in Cote d’Ivoire, the history of state social and
economic policy combine to transform predominantly pooling systems into a more
vertical, clientelist system of social ties. Third, the paper reveals the implications of
these differences in informal networks for the meaning of citizenship, political
participation and prospects for democracy in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire. Contrary to the
familiar image depicted of the “weak” or “failed” African state, Morris MacLean argues
that the state is capable of producing tremendous social change on what are usually
considered to be quite powerful and resilient social structures, in particular, the social
networks of the extended family and village community, however, the direction and
magnitude of these changes is often indirect and unintended. The paper demonstrates the
importance of analyzing the interaction effects between formal and informal institutions
in order to understand politics in Africa and elsewhere. The paper combines quantitative
and qualitative methodologies and is based on over 18 months of fieldwork in two similar
regions of neighboring Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.