Acknowledgments

In developing a PhD dissertation prospectus, one of my advisors at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) told me that the most important thing was to pick a topic that would interest me “for the next ten years.” Ten years, I thought! Would I really be working on my dissertation project for an entire decade? As with most things, Barbara Geddes’s wisdom turned out to be absolutely correct. This book is the result of ten years of thinking about bureaucratic politics, public service delivery, corruption, and patronage within the context of low- and middle-income democracies, with a particular focus on Ghana.

First and foremost, I acknowledge the academic community at UCLA that developed me into a political scientist. I was fortunate to receive excellent guidance and support from several faculty members and staff in the Department of Political Science. This book is based on my PhD dissertation, and I thank Kathy Bawn, Mike Callen, Barbara Geddes, and Mike Thies for serving on my dissertation committee, and Dan Posner for chairing it. I also thank Dan for his advice on publishing this book.

In Ghana, I owe much gratitude to several people. Most especially, I thank the bureaucrats, firm owners, and politicians who shared their experiences with me. I’m grateful for their time and honesty, and I hope this book accurately and respectfully captures their realities. I thank the Ghana Center for Democratic Development for providing me with a research home during my time there. Thanks to Professor Gyimah-Boadi and Dr. Kojo Asante for their enduring support. Thank you also to the International Growth Center (in London and Accra) for providing financial support for this project, and to Henry Telli and James Dzansi for their support and advice. I am especially grateful to Sammy Kweku Yemoah, who led the team that collected data across local governments in Ghana. Sammy’s tragic passing in 2020 continues to fill me with sadness. I also extend heartfelt thanks to the team of Ghanaian research assistants who conducted the survey work.

The arguments in this book were sharpened at a book conference in June 2021. I thank Rikhil Bhavnani, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Mai Hassan, Noah Nathan, George Kwaku Ofosu, Dan Posner, and Rachel Beatty Riedl for their close reading and thoughtful suggestions. Thanks to Noah for continuing these conversations with me over the years. Thanks also to Hanna Folsz for her meticulous note-taking that day.

I’m grateful to the colleagues in the Department of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis and in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Thanks to Cathy Boone, Sara Hobolt, and Stephanie Rickard for their support and advice leading up to the manuscript’s submission. The costs to make this book open access were generously covered by the LSE Open Access Books Fund. I also greatly appreciate the advice I received from Fiona Shen-Bayh, Anne Meng, and Mathias Poertner.

I benefited from presenting parts of this book at University College London, University of Ghana, Oxford University, and Bocconi University. I’m grateful for the thoughtful suggestions I received from those audiences. I also thank several academic colleagues for sharing their ideas and commenting on sections of this manuscript, including Graeme Blair, Danny Choi, Darin Christensen, Brian Crisp, Florian Foos, Saad Gulzar, Dan Honig, Martha Johnson, Eric Kramon, Galen Murray, Virginia Oliveros, Jan Pierskalla, Lauren Young, Christian Schuster, Margit Tavits, Martha Wilfahrt, Martin Williams, and Lauren Young. Similarly, I thank my anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. Chapter Four of this manuscript draws on the article “Unprincipled Principals: Co-opted Bureaucrats and Corruption in Ghana” and appropriate permissions for reprinting have been granted.

Somewhat worried that not all political scientists share my enthusiasm for bureaucracy, I collaborated with the talented illustrator Jamie Douglas to design the book’s cover. Thanks to Jamie for his creativity and kindness throughout. Many thanks also to Kelley Friel for her careful copyediting of the manuscript.

At times, it felt overwhelming to juggle writing this book with life’s other demands. I owe a great deal to my non-academic friends, who keep life varied and exciting. I’m especially grateful to Sam Kammerling for his interest in this project, and for navigating North London playgrounds with me. Thanks also to Claire Jeffwitz and Jess Wynter Bee for supporting me through all of life’s hurdles. And to Andrea Vilán for her never-ending kindness.

Thanks to my grandparents, June and Peter, for their unwavering love and support, and to my siblings, Jayne and Matthew, and their families. I’m grateful to Jill Brierley for her interest in all my academic pursuits. Most of all, I thank my mum. It’s hard to put into words all that she has given – and given up – for me.

My partner George has been by my side throughout this project. I thank him for believing that I could see this project to the end. I also thank him for (lovingly) derailing my writing progress over the years by giving me two such precious gifts. I’m grateful to Kwesi and Amma for their zest for life and love of the outdoors, both of which led me to places I needed to go to finish this manuscript. In not dedicating this book to them, I’ve given myself my next task...