This paper asks whether patrimonial hiring in colonial contexts can originate with local bureaucrats rather than political principals. Using newly digitized personnel records from six decades of British rule in Ghana, the authors examine patterns of hiring for African staff and assess whether meritocratic or patrimonial rules prevailed. The study contributes to debates about early state-building by highlighting bureaucrats’ potential agency in shaping personnel choices, especially where political leaders were socially distant from governed communities.
Digitized personnel records Colonial Ghana, British rule Patrimonial hiring patterns
Data and methods
The authors digitize individual-level administrative records spanning six decades of British colonial rule in Ghana and analyze hiring outcomes for African staff. The abstract indicates a focus on comparing meritocratic indicators to patterns consistent with patrimonialism and on measuring inequities across ethnic groups; it does not specify exact statistical models or identification strategies in the abstract.
Main findings
According to the abstract, the evidence from the digitized records points to patrimonialism rather than meritocracy in the hiring of African staff, with substantial inequities across ethnic groups. The authors argue these results show that local bureaucrats’ private preferences can dominate hiring when political principals are socially distant and areas lie outside politicians’ core interests, and they suggest this mechanism helps explain features of postcolonial neopatrimonialism.
- Hiring of African staff in colonial Ghana showed patterns the authors characterize as patrimonial rather than meritocratic.
- The authors report large inequities across ethnic groups in these hiring outcomes.
