Devanne Brookins Dissertation Advisor: Balakrishnan Rajagopal
Reform from Above, Reinterpretation from Below: State Making and Institutional Change in Ghana The dissertation engages a fundamental question in the social sciences: How do institutions change? The questions that drive this research include: How does institutional change occur, and how do varied forms of social organization within informal institutions influence institutional reforms in the land sector? The dissertation does this by examining land administration reform in Ghana during the period of 2003 – 2016. Theoretically, the dissertation employs the literature on institutions and change, critically engaging the role of the state and the role of society in constituting property rights along with the institutions and organizations that support them. Empirically, the study is based on extensive field research to find that the theoretical assumptions regarding informal organizations are inadequate to understand the role of diverse societal actors in institutional change.
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The dissertation argues that the state, seeking to build coherence, employs land administration reform as a mechanism towards the objective of economic transformation. The reform is based on an integrative approach, whereby the state seeks to incorporate customary authorities into a logic of the state, emphasizing coherence instead of autonomy. However, this integrative approach is flawed as it downplays the heterogeneity of organizations, including their interests and internal characteristics. The findings demonstrate that institutional change is mediated by the strategies and behaviors of informal organizations, requiring categorizations of these actors and their behaviors as a necessary component of any theory of institutional change. Such categorization requires an analysis of relative power – economic, political and social – of informal organizations and their ability to not only affect informal institutions, but formal institutions and change.