Party political campaigning and the illegal extraction of gold in Ghana

This article explores the relationships between party political campaigning and illegal small-scale mining in Ghana, with the aim of contributing to and advancing an extensive debate about the formalization of artisanal small-scale gold mining (ASM) in Sub-Saharan Africa. ASM in Ghana remains overwhelmingly informal and illegal (a phenomenon known locally as galamsey) and is typically practised with the knowledge and tacit support of diverse state actors. This article shows that rents from illegal gold mining and political elites’ increasing dependence on galamsey-dominated constituencies for votes are key reasons for the failure of ASM reforms and formalization efforts. The dynamic is compounded by Ghana’s electoral geography, where many illegal gold miners are concentrated in politically competitive, mineral-rich constituencies. State-led military raids on galamsey sites that are supposed to root out illegality and pursue ASM formalization have failed to achieve such objectives and have instead facilitated the capture of illegal mining rents for ruling party elites and supporters. The article contributes critically to the literature on ASM and its formalization by shifting the focus away from technocratic and administrative barriers to highlight the political settlement that enables illegality to persist. We conclude that the illegal extraction of gold is not external to Ghana’s formal democracy but is an essential part of it.