Linking Middle Class to Political Stability in Ghana

The concept “Middle Class “conventionally invoked to refer to a social class that are drivers of social change both in economic and in Political terms in the west and in developing world.

 Ghana, like many African countries has had its share bit of political instabilities particularly in the aftermath of independence, in the 1960’s, 1970s and 1980s.  But since the return to democratic rule in 1992, it has steadying established itself as the beacon of democracy with multi party elections every four years and serves as an example for other African countries to emulate .

This paper will explore if the current political stability in Ghana since the return to constitutional rule in 1992 had been a result of its middle class. It traces the Ghanaian middle class from independence, post-independence era of military rule to date and the role the middle class played especially in the 1990s and 2000s to ensure the political stability prevails.  Drawling on a field work carried out in Ghana in 2012 with a varied sample from different social backgrounds to gage out who these middle class are? What classify them as middle class? To borrow Bourdieu’s social classification typology: is it their economic, political, education and cultural capitals that make them middle class? And what economic or political role do they play within the Ghanaian political sphere?