Environmental governance and political contestation in contexts of illegal small-scale gold mining in Ghana

IF 3.1 2区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Geoforum Pub Date : 2025-02-07 DOI:10.1016/j.geoforum.2025.104221

Leonora Kleppa Stærfeldt , Paul Austin Stacey

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Abstract

Ghana experiences significant environmental harm from illegal small-scale gold mining. Despite government attempts to halt operations, countless sites exist around the country – enjoying local legitimacy, operating with seeming political impunity, and playing increasing roles in both local and national political economies. This article focuses on the environmental governance challenges and the underlying political organisational drivers, analysed from the perspectives of political settlement theory and contentious politics. This shows environmental governance challenges arising from the Ghana Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) occupying an inferior position in relation to more powerful and competing state entities and endeavouring to fulfil mandates in highly contentious local social and political fields. Accordingly, we argue that challenges to environmental regulation are based in efforts to establish ruling coalition stability amidst fierce political and institutional competition, and which results in an informalisation of resource governance and lack of structural constraints on powerful actors.

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加纳非法小规模金矿开采背景下的环境治理和政治争论

非法小规模金矿开采对加纳造成了严重的环境危害。尽管政府试图停止运营，但全国各地仍有数不清的网站——享受着当地的合法性，在政治上不受惩罚，并在地方和国家政治经济中发挥着越来越大的作用。本文从政治解决理论和争议政治的角度分析了环境治理的挑战和潜在的政治组织驱动因素。这表明，加纳环境保护局（EPA）在与更强大、更有竞争力的国家实体相比处于劣势地位，并努力在极具争议的地方社会和政治领域履行任务，由此产生了环境治理方面的挑战。因此，我们认为环境监管面临的挑战是基于在激烈的政治和制度竞争中建立执政联盟的努力，这导致资源治理的非正式化和对强大行动者缺乏结构性约束。

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来源期刊

Geoforum GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

7.30

自引率

5.70%

发文量

201

期刊介绍： Geoforum is an international, inter-disciplinary journal, global in outlook, and integrative in approach. The broad focus of Geoforum is the organisation of economic, political, social and environmental systems through space and over time. Areas of study range from the analysis of the global political economy and environment, through national systems of regulation and governance, to urban and regional development, local economic and urban planning and resources management. The journal also includes a Critical Review section which features critical assessments of research in all the above areas.