Mao’s new democracy and Ghana’s foreign policy change in 1983

Suweon Kim

doi:10.7552/0-2-128

Abstract

Flight Lieutenant John Rawlings took power by a coup d’etat accusing the previous Limann regime of being neo-colonialist and being a slave of imperialists in 1981. When he took power, he was mainly supported by radical leftists and Ghana’s foreign policy leant towards socialist countries. However, two years later the regime drastically reversed its foreign policy towards the West. The paper focuses on the foreign policy change in 1983 and takes a close look at the role of Maoism on the elite in the foreign policy change in Ghana. During the first two years of the Rawlings regime, the June Forth Movement (JFM) and the New Democratic Movement (NDM) were two main elite groups in the regime. Even though the JFM and the NDM shared the same goal of socialism, the two groups had different visions on how to reach to the goal. The JFM sought rapid socialism through attacking the rich and severing international links with imperialist countries. On the other hand, for the NDM, which was influenced by Mao’s “New Democracy” as the name indicates, embracement of the rich business people and international players were on its path to the ultimate socialism. In the middle of the ideological conflicts between the two, Rawlings severed the link with the JFM whose leaders turned out to be threats to survival of the regime, and in the process the NDM emerged as the single influential power group. The NDM and Rawlings turned Ghana’s foreign policy toward the West and sought for aid from the Bretton Woods institutions in 1983.

Highlights

Rawlings took power by a military coup in 1981 overthrowing the civilian Limann administration whose foreign policy was skewed towards the West
The elite in the New Democratic Movement (NDM), who were inspired by Mao‘s New Democracy, argued that instead of rapid socialisation excluding some classes in Ghana, Ghana should take time to reach fuller socialism by entailing various classes in Ghana and by collaborating with international capitalists
This approach originated from Mao‘s New Democracy and Rawlings found a good use of it, as a political tool to check his rivals, the radical socialist June Forth Movement (JFM)

Summary

Introduction

Rawlings took power by a military coup in 1981 overthrowing the civilian Limann administration whose foreign policy was skewed towards the West. We are going to explore those possibilities‖ (West Africa, 1982e). This ostensibly non-aligned stance of the Rawlings regime did not mean that foreign policy of Ghana was non-aligned in practice. The practice of foreign policy in the Rawlings regime was getting socialist countries close to Ghana and keeping distance from the West. The Rawlings regime redirected Ghana‘s foreign policy towards the Communist East as soon as Rawlings took office. America‘s Reagan administration was regarded as resurgent ―old demons‖ (West Africa, 1982d) and countries in the Eastern bloc emerged as friends. Diplomatic relations were rebuilt with socialist countries such as Cuba, Libya, and Eastern Europe. Policy change of Rawlings in 1983 at the level of elite dynamics and examines the role of Mao‘s theory of New Democracy in the change

Theoretical Background

Findings

Conclusion