Ghana's Foreign Policy

Kwame Nkrumah's Normative Legacy and Pan-Africanism

Charles Asante

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781666953527
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Ghana's Foreign Policy: Kwame Nkrumah's Normative Legacy and Pan-Africanism examines Ghana's foreign policy in the post-independence era, focusing on the enduring legacy of Kwame Nkrumah. This book also analyzes the complexity of post-independence foreign policy decision making and the influence of the post-colonial narrative during the Cold War. In this study, Charles Asante argues that the significance and continuity of Nkrumah's legacy is often attributed to his pan-Africanist leadership on the African continent, fervently articulating an independent African foreign policy. Leaders like Nkrumah, considered themselves as the redeemers of Africa's political and economic vulnerability from its colonial experiences. Asante finds that, in contrast to the positive experience associated with his independence movement for Ghana, Nkrumah could not build the same kind of vision, engagement, and networks among other African nationalist leaders necessary for successful promotion of a Pan-African region. Despite Nkrumah's own foreign policy failures in the Congo, the United States of Africa project, and his sudden overthrow in 1966, Nkrumah's Pan-African vision is still promoted as an important foreign policy objective by Ghana's politicians, public servants, military, and academics.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 An Introduction to Norm Entrepreneurship
• 2 The Intellectual Roots of Pan-Africanism
• 3 The Emergence of Kwame Nkrumah as a Norm Entrepreneur
• 4 The Ghanaian State: Post-Independence Period, 1950s–1960s
• 5 Kwame Nkrumah’s Pan-African Foreign Policy: The Congo Intervention
• 6 Kwame Nkrumah and the Creation of the Organization of African Unity: An Embodiment of Pan-Africanism
• 7 Kwame Nkrumah’s Demise and Foreign Policy Legacy
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Primary Research (Interviews)
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author