Lauren M. MacLean, "Negotiating Power and Inequality in Ghana: Electricity and Citizenship as Reciprocity (Indiana UP, 2026)

Mar 15, 2026

Lauren M. MacLean, a political scientist focused on African electricity access and citizenship, explores Ghana’s chronic power shortages and their political effects. She traces history from postcolonial electrification to modern dumsor. MacLean examines why the hardest‑hit communities are least likely to demand accountability, uses art and fieldwork to illuminate lived inequality, and reframes citizenship as reciprocity.

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ANECDOTE

Government Prioritized Power For The World Cup Broadcast

For Ghana vs USA World Cup match the state prioritized electricity by reducing industrial demand and stopping exports so households could watch.
Government asked citizens to turn off freezers for 24 hours and paused power exports to ensure coverage.

INSIGHT

Electricity Became A Civic Promise In Ghana

Ghana's state-led hydroelectric expansion under Kwame Nkrumah created electricity as a core symbol of citizenship and national pride.
Okasombo dam tours, school visits, and repeated political promises embedded expectations that the national grid would reach every corner of Ghana.

INSIGHT

Dumsor Was Long Unpredictable And Economically Devastating

Dumsor described prolonged, frequent, and unpredictable load-shedding that destroyed food, disrupted markets, and caused trauma.
Households faced 12–24 hour outages, reversed schedules, and lost refrigerators or cold-storage businesses, hitting women and marginal households hardest.

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In Ghana, much as in other parts of the Global South, postcolonial leaders aimed for industrial growth through the establishment of affordable hydroelectric power. However, in the current rapidly changing climate, many nations face recurring droughts, which hinder electricity production just when demand is on the rise. This situation has led to challenges like load shedding and unplanned power outages, which have strained the bond between citizens and the government.

Negotiating Power and Inequality in Ghana: Electricity and Citizenship as Reciprocity (Indiana UP, 2026) aims to unravel the puzzling reality that, despite enduring increasing difficulties from these electricity shortages, the Ghanaian citizens who suffer most harshly are also the least likely to demand political accountability from the state. Drawing on archival evidence, focus groups, qualitative interviews, survey data, and contemporary art and music, author Lauren M. MacLean explains how this disparity in experience—fueled by differences in income and geographical location—has led lower- and higher-income Ghanaians to form contrasting perspectives on their social rights regarding public services and to adopt varying approaches to political involvement. Rather than relying on a predetermined social contract, citizens in Ghana develop a more fluid relationship with the state, shaped by their histories, identities, and personal experiences. This reciprocity highlights their awareness of how climate change and the global shift toward green energy can significantly impact their lives while also underscoring the necessity for the government to take the lead and engage with Ghanaians to promote climate justice.

Lauren M. MacLean is the Thomas P. O’Neill Chair of Public Life and Department Chair of Political Science at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on the politics of electricity access and the everyday practice of citizenship in Africa. She conducts fieldwork in Ghana and Kenya, collecting survey data from individuals, conducting focus group discussions, doing archival work, and carrying out qualitative interviews with politicians, policymakers, practitioners, and ordinary people.

MacLean has published award-winning books and articles, including: Informal Institutions and Citizenship in Rural Africa (Cambridge, 2010), The Politics of Non-State Social Welfare in the Global South (Cornell, 2014), co-edited with Cammett, and Field Research in Political Science (Cambridge, 2015), coauthored with Kapiszewski and Read. Her research has been published in a wide range of journals and supported by grants, including NSF, SSRC, RWJ, Fulbright-Hays, and Carnegie. She was the recipient of the APSA QMMR 2016 David Collier Mid-Career Achievement Award.

You can learn more about her work here.

Afua Baafi Quarshie is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on mothering and childhood in post-independence Ghana.

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