By 1990, the Ghanaian government was considered by some a model World Bank pupil. The first generation of neo-liberal reforms to restructure the Ghanaian economy had been completed successfully and the government was poised to introduce a second generation of reforms. The common wisdom among reform technocrats is that this second reform phase is difficult and, in contrast with the first phase of reform, that it requires high levels of cooperation from broader society and from the private sector in particular. There were thus strong incentives for the Ghanaian government to step up its consultations with business, and the World Bank urged it to do so. In addition, the business community in Ghana was slightly larger and more independent minded than its Zambian counterpart, or at least, much of it was. Despite all of these factors, business in Ghana had little influence on the course of economic policy in the 1990s. Why was this?

The answer, I will argue, lies in both the natures of the Ghanaian state and business sectors, and the character of their interactions. The Ghanaian private sector comprised elements that could be described as neo-patrimonial, as well as elements that were distinctively autonomous.