The social embeddedness of elections: Ghana’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns

ABSTRACT Campaign rallies serve as arenas of political communication where candidates present their campaign messages face-to-face in order to gain votes. This article suggests that rallies are one of several forms of campaign visits along with official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents. Drawing on an original dataset of campaign visits in Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections, we find that a significant political learning process took place between the two races for candidates of the two major parties, as candidates diversified their strategies beyond the rally-intensive campaign. Candidates extended the communicative and representative elements of the traditional rally through socially embedded practices by relying on occupational groups like market associations and fisherfolk to mobilise voters. By explaining the meaning behind different forms of campaign visits, we conclude that campaign rallies and other visits are embedded in social realities that shape political mobilisation.


Introduction
Election campaigns are now institutionalised features of African politics (Bleck & van de Walle, 2019).This has sparked a growing literature on how politicians mobilise voters (Kramon, 2019), the appeals to which voters respond (Gadjanova, 2021;Jöst & Lust, 2022), and the importance of mass election rallies (Paget, 2019b).Rallies, in particular, provide a space for both politicians and constituents to make representative claims (Lynch, 2023).While rallies continue to be a space to communicate campaign messages, consolidate constituencies, and contest races (Paget et al., 2023), they also take various forms, ranging from walking rallies (Kwayu, 2023) to big-wig rallies (Lewanika, 2023) to mega-rallies.
We acknowledge this diversity in rallies, and suggest the need to integrate the type of rallies into a larger universe of campaign visits, which include official business stops, courtesy calls to local notables, and personal interactions with constituents.Candidates are now articulating their campaign visits in these ways, highlighting the diversity of their visits to constituents and pointing out the type of interaction they have with specific constituencies.Election campaign visits involve candidates engaging in face-to-face interactions with as many citizens as possible, as party intermediaries simultaneously build organisational capacity and seek to legitimate authority at the grassroots.Disaggregating the form of campaign visits can help explain where stops occur, who is involved, and the messages that are delivered.Campaign visits, including rallies, have a ritualistic quality and play a critical role in prospects for peace and stability (Oduro, 2021).
Locating the study of rallies within a broader universe of campaign visits can shed additional light on the motivations of political parties and the ruling elite, the perceptions and preferences of the electorate, and the exercise of political power.In contrast to existing approaches that narrowly focus on the formal and electoral aspects of political mobilisation, we treat election campaigns as part of an ongoing social process where political parties are embedded in the local neighbourhoods where campaign visits occur.The connections and attachments of political parties to societal actors and organisations-their social embeddedness-shapes the form electoral campaigns take.For many ordinary Africans, campaign visits offer a grassroots voice for peoplea space for uneducated, informal workers to enter the political power structures through local 'branches' and access governmental higherups who actually make decisions (Brierley & Nathan, 2022).Candidates, and the campaigns they run, represent a vision of the future of the country, but also a connection to the past.For politicians, campaign visits offer a chance to present their policies and report on performance, recognise communities as citizens deserving of equal rights, and listen to the needs of their constituents.They are arenas for 'representative claims' (Saward, 2006, p. 302).
We explain the forms of election campaign visits by comparing Ghana's 2016 and 2020 presidential election campaigns.Most studies of African election campaigns focus on a single election (for example, Whitfield, 2009;Ayee, 2017).By comparing two elections in the same country, we shed light on the institutional and social features that underlie political mobilisation.Importantly, these two elections feature incumbents from different political parties but the same candidates.John Mahama ran as incumbent president from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2016 and lost; Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) won in 2016 as opposition challenger and then in 2020 as incumbent.We compile an original dataset of campaign visits during Ghana's 2016 and 2020 elections to outline the different forms of visits, and then use it to explain the targeting, types, and meanings of these campaign activities.
We argue that the location of campaign visits is widely distributed across the entire country and is not easily explained by conventional explanations.We document a significant learning process between the 2016 and 2020 elections for both candidates.One important finding is that candidates in 2020 relied on more diverse forms of campaign visits, beyond traditional rallies.In addition, we note the growing public importance of traditional authorities in Ghana's elections and argue that this is part of the social embeddedness of electoral politics.Finally, we explain why and how occupational interest groups-for example, fishermen, artisans, market associations, and footballers-serve as important intermediaries during campaigns and demonstrate how campaigns offer them a political voice and the opportunity to be recognised.In line with the special issue, we emphasise the ritualistic quality of campaign rallies, but suggest that politicians use different forms of campaign stops to communicate directly with constituents.

Explaining election campaign visits
Campaign visits, including rallies, play a formative role in political parties' ground campaign-the 'personalised political communication' that is used to engage with the electorate through allied interest groups and civic associations, technical infrastructure, and armies of volunteers and paid staff (Nielsen, 2012).But what role do these visits actually play in elections?Why do political parties rely on place-based campaigning?A large literature on electoral mobilisation across the world provides preliminary insights.Theoretically, face-to-face campaign visits should help drive voter turnout (Gerber & Green, 2000), especially when parties open local field offices (Masket, 2009), as parties use surrogates to advertise their message, mobilise supporters and win over swing voters (Hersh, 2015).
Politicians might use campaign visits to distribute patronage to clients to mobilise voters (Nichter, 2008), especially core supporters (Nathan, 2019).Incumbents might also use visits to invest in a party's organisational strength, trying to 'buy off' potential opposition voters (for example, Tripp, 2010;Paget, 2019b).Handouts during campaign visits can also serve as an informational cuea strategy politicians use to lend credibility to their future promises (Kramon, 2016).A recent study in Ghana finds that parties prefer to use rallies in their core constituencies, and canvassing and handouts in swing districts (Brierley & Kramon, 2020).
Campaign visits can take on an ethnic dimension, as politicians allocate resources to mobilise core ethnic constituencies.However, in Kenya, Horowitz finds that campaign rallies are used to persuade non-co-ethnic swing voters and garner broad-based support (Horowitz, 2016).In addition, voters who do not have co-ethnics in the race are more likely to change their votes during a campaign (Horowitz, 2019), providing more evidence as to why parties focus their rallies in swing constituencies that include diverse ethnic groups.
These existing approaches too narrowly focus on the formal aspects of the campaigns without considering how campaigns are embedded in a larger social context.This is especially important in Africa, where rallies and other collective activities have a long history as part of popular mobilisation against colonial rule (Branch & Mampilly, 2015) and in African elections.Firstly, they do not account for the emotions the visit is meant to inspire and the type of activitycutting sod grass or turf for development projects, durbar of chiefs, engagement with tradersthat forms the basis of the stop.Second, they do not explain who the intermediaries are, beyond basic demographic characteristics like ethnic group and income status, and their roles.This is important as peoples' political attitudes are 'rooted in place' and heavily influenced by the group consciousness of a local community (Cramer, 2016), as well as the speeches and support of local notables (Beardsworth, 2020).By not understanding local authority and cultural understandings of power (Schatzberg, 2001), scholars risk missing how the forms of campaign visits provide underlying meaning to citizens at the grassroots.

The meaning of campaign visits
Campaign visits can be important avenues for citizen participation (Ferree, 2010) and political learning (Conroy-Krutz, 2016).Campaign tours bring representatives and constituents togethermuch like a town hall meeting and create a political culture of 'shared ideas, practices, and technologies that help individuals combine into publics and achieve representation' (Perrin, 2014, p. 1).For the candidate, campaign visits can even serve as a constituency service, enabling them to engage with their constituents and better understand their needs and preferences (Fenno, 2003).While not all campaign rallies offer back-and-forth deliberation, those that do, can even help to overcome clientelism providing citizens with a means to discuss programmatic policies.For example, in Benin's 2011 election, town hall meetings positively affected turnout (Wantchekon, 2017).In this way, campaign visits can produce a sense of belonging, shared identity, and intense partisanship.
Importantly, electoral campaigns are embedded in society.Campaign events only make sense within a relational, institutional, and cultural context.Politicians, campaign organisers, brokers, and foot soldiers are social beings (Polanyi & MacIver, 1957) and develop political campaigns based on their relevant social contexts.This means that important interest groups and intermediaries are context-specific and depend on the authority structures in local communities (Paller, 2019a).Moreover, political campaign rallies serve an important accountability function, putting them in face-toface contact with citizens.In many African societies, political accountability rests on the dynamic process of talking and listening between constituents and representatives and then enacting these ideas (Paller, 2019b).Like town hall meetings, campaign visits offer a space for political communication and engagement.They are a medium through which junior and senior politicians interact, requiring important 'ground communication' (Paget, 2019a).They facilitate the co-production of representative claims by bringing politicians and constituents together in communicative interactions (Paget et al., 2023).They offer leaders the chance to legitimize their rule, demonstrating that they rule with the people as one unified family and nation (Schatzberg, 2001).Rallies provide citizens the chance to interpret public policies in their own language (Schaffer, 1998).In this way, they serve as cultural rituals (Miles, 1989).Finally, tours around the country makes the candidate's presence more tangible, even reminding some far-off villages that they sit within the country's boundaries and deserve citizenship rights (Jourde, 2005).
Campaigns do not occur in a historical vacuum.While they represent a vision of the country's future, they are also a connection to the past.They offer politicians the chance to explain where they fit into the country's historical development and how they build from political traditions.Through campaign manifestoes, parties offer clear policy prescriptions but also a hope for a better future (Van Gyampo & Debrah, 2013).In this way, campaigns rouse people's emotions and inspire them to get involved by spurring supporters into action and promising a bright and optimistic future (Wilkins & Vokes, 2023).Political parties tap into historical narrativesthe stories people tell to make sense of their social or political realities (Patterson & Monroe, 1998;Klaus, 2020).Kathleen Klaus explains how narratives can act like social movement frames (Benford & Snow, 2000, p. 614) by enabling 'individuals to make meaning out of events and in so doing, these narratives help to 'organize experience and guide action' (Klaus, 2020, p. 36).For political campaigns, 'elites often use framing to manipulate citizens' judgments' (Druckman, 2001, p. 226).Politicians create a story around a broader political movement, solidifying boundaries between the different sides.Politicians often tap into narratives of larger forms of popular mobilisation.For example, in Ghana, parties make connections to the founding fathers and emphasise their role in the anti-colonial struggle.In Zambia, parties tap into a broader narrative about the country's relationship with China (Larmer & Fraser, 2007).In South Africa, the African National Congress continues to peddle the narrative of being freedom fighters and liberators after Apartheid (Smith, 2019).These narratives serve a performative dimension and give campaigns meaning beyond the individual party or candidate, linking people through a shared sense of purpose (Wedeen, 2015).

Campaign visits in Ghana
In 2020, Ghana held its eighth campaign season (since 1992) as part of the Fourth Republic and multi-party era.Its elections are some of the most institutionalised in Africa, and campaigns are engrained in the social fabric of everyday life.Every four years, campaign season ramps up, taking over the airwaves, newspaper headlines, and tro-tro (public bus) conversations.But the spectacle of campaign season emerged far before the current era of multi-party democracy.
Massive crowds, street rallies, and even riots were emblematic of the traditional asafo (warrior) crowds of pre-colonial Ghana, as well as the intense struggle against colonial rule.By 1949, the leaders of the anti-colonial struggle split into two factionsthe United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and the Convention People's Party (CPP).The former, led by J.B. Danquah, became synonymous with the phrase 'Independence in the shortest possible time', while Kwame Nkrumah led the CPP with a populist fervour demanding 'Independence now'.Nkrumah's leadership won the 1951 elections, setting the stage for his succession to head of state of the newly independent Ghana in 1957 (Bob-Milliar, 2014a).As the first black country to gain Independence, Ghana honoured the achievement with a massive celebration that included black intellectuals, heads-of-state, and pan-Africanists from all over the world.This massive rally spilled over into dancing in the streets, and this intense national prideinspired by popular mobilisationstill resonates at campaign rallies today.
This brief history of Ghanaian popular mobilisation is important as it sets the stage for campaign events in the Fourth Republic.The NDC is built on Kwame Nkrumah's lineage and political tradition.He built his Independence movement with the support of 'verandah boys', a collection of young people who sought control over their lives outside colonial rule, but also outside the traditional leaders and elites who dominated public life.Former military leader-turneddemocrat Jerry John Rawlings incorporated this tradition into the founding of the NDC, using mass mobilisation and populism as an electoral tactic.
The NPP derives much of its support from the Ashanti Region and traces its lineage to the UGCC business and political elite.Many residents in marginalised communitieslike poor urban neighbourhoods and villages in the northern regionsview the NPP as a party with arrogant and distant leaders who speak 'big English'.NDC and NPP political campaigns must confront these differing public sentiments, even though many of their public policiesuniversal public education and improvements in healthcare benefitsare quite similar.
Campaign visits offer parties the chance to use the existing narratives to either drive mobilisation or attempt to change the narrative altogether, as well as tailor messages to face-to-face audiences (Lynch, 2023).The NDC has professionalised its campaign, hiring PR firms, graphic designers, and data analysts.They have even formed a group of 'Progressive Intellectuals' to cater to middle-class voters.The NPP has built up its grassroots networks, spending more money on local organisation, vigilance at polling stations, and even expanding its propaganda machine (Bob-Milliar & Paller, 2018).Both parties invest significant resources in their ground campaign, relying on party organisersdeemed foot soldiers in the public discourseto mobilise support (Bob-Milliar, 2012;Brierley & Nathan, 2022). 1 These foot soldiers include market women, fisherfolk, keep-fit club members, boxers, rappers, biker boys, fishmongers, assemblypersons, footballers, macho-men, land guards, fetish priests, tailors, musicians, actors, comedians, and imams.Foot soldiers gain recognition from the political parties, aim to raise their status in their communities, and often gain valuable resources and government contracts (Klaus & Paller, 2017).In addition, while traditional authorities have historically had a complicated relationship with Ghanaian politicians, they have re-emerged as powerful intermediariesas 'development brokers' (Baldwin, 2015) and ethnic kingmakers (Koter, 2013) and parties are quick to publicise their relationship and make courtesy calls on them during campaign stops.

Data and methods
We have compiled the Ghana Campaign Visits Database to document public campaign activity by the two major parties and candidates (NPP and NDC) in the lead-up to Ghana's presidential election.This database contains visits from the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns.We define campaign visits as electioneering events with the explicit and publicly stated objective of mobilising voters and amassing electoral support.These stops are location-and time-bound and are publicly announced via social media, which is now central to campaign strategy across the country (Kwayu, 2022).We include events from the candidates' Facebook pages.We do not include private events with intermediaries, nor events that are not publicised as part of the formal campaign marketing.
This dataset is the first to record campaign stops across Ghana in a way that captures the full geographic extent of their visits. 2This enables us to provide a geographic distribution of modern campaign activity and historical trends.Campaigns' use of social media allows us to develop a more complete count of campaign visits compared to newspaper accounts (for example, Rauschenbauch, 2015; Horowitz, 2022), as journalists were typically based in major cities and did not cover all campaign stops.While we are reliant on campaigns' self-recording, the public and social nature of the Facebook pages deter candidates from fabricating visits and enables people affiliated with the campaign to upload information to ensure that a visit is documented.
We code the following types of campaign visits: rally, official business, courtesy call, and interaction.We define rallies as 'public event[s] at which speakers address an audience face-to-face for the ostensible purpose of politically mobilizing it' (Paget, 2019a, p. 451).We also include mini-rallies in this coding, a label that the campaigns themselves use.The goal of rallies is to attract as large a crowd as possible to signal strength; these photos are then posted to social media to demonstrate excitement and attract more discussion and attention.Official business includes events where candidates use the commission or inauguration of state projects as campaign events.This coding includes commissions, sod grass cuttings, inaugurations, official visits, and inspections.These stops are a space for the government to report back on their performance, as well as project its future plans.Courtesy calls are visits to prominent local authoritiesusually traditional authorities or eldersto seek permission to visit their jurisdictions.They are specifically designated for electioneering and publicly announced.We include durbars, or public gatherings presided by chiefs, in this coding.Finally, interactions are any other events where candidates meet with groups of constituents.This coding includes public ceremonies, campaign launches, whistle stops, drive-throughs, and press conferences.
We supplement this analysis with a collation of Ghanaian-based newspapers from January of the election year to polling day.The analysis includes the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times, the NPP-aligned Daily Guide and Chronicle, and the NDC-aligned Herald and Heritage.180 events are included in 2016 and 212 in 2020.This data helps us to present a descriptive analysis of campaign visits in Ghana through a detailed schedule of campaign visits.Finally, we draw on more than ten years of immersive research studying elections and political parties in Ghana to interpret the results.We also interviewed 109 party activists from both political parties (57 NDC, 52 NPP) to better understand the logics and motivations of campaign visits (Appendix B).

Findings
The campaign visits database provides a descriptive picture of electioneering in Ghana.First, we ask whether the 2016 and 2020 elections demonstrate any notable differences.We find that the presidential candidates made more campaign visits in 2020 than in 2016 (539-317).Part of the reason for this is that campaigns did a better job of publicising their visits via social media, demonstrating how forums like Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp are now firmly embedded into the technological infrastructure of party organisations.Our interviews with activists suggest that politicians now recognise that both the visits and their social media announcements are crucial tenets of Ghanaian electioneering, suggesting that political learning took place (Lindberg, 2006) (Tables 1-5).
The change in the type of visit is also notable.In 2016, the vast majority of campaign visits were rallies (250 of 317).In 2020, these visits were far more   equally distributed among the four different types: courtesy call (130), interaction (159), official business (119), and rally (131).Part of this can be explained by how the party records its visits via Facebook.But even if this explains some of the differences, it suggests that campaigns specifically target and explicitly recognise their intermediaries (courtesy calls and interactions) and accomplishments (official business).One interpretation of this is that this form of campaign visits offers a powerful form of social recognition-demonstrating care and concern and respecting human dignity of a specific identity group (Klaus et al., 2023).It also demonstrates the limits of rallies, suggesting that it can be more cost effective to rely on campaign visits that are more targeted to groups around specific issues.Traditional authorities and occupational groups demand interactions, and politicians cater to their demands.In addition, Akufo-Addo used official business activities as campaign events much more than Mahama did in 2016 (119 versus 9).In addition, this was important during the coronavirus pandemic during which the 2020 campaign took place, as Akufo-Addo took advantage of official activities to speak directly to Ghanaians and limit largescale events.Campaign visits are distributed across the entire country.There do not appear to be any major trends with respect to courtesy calls and interactions, although there are clusters of courtesy calls in Greater Accra (28), Ashanti (19), Central ( 14), and Western North Regions (10).Greater Accra and Ashanti are the largest regions; however, all regions have established and politically important traditional leadership structures.Rallies are also distributed across the country, though they are more clustered in the south.This is likely because the south has a greater population density, making rallies a more effective campaign strategy.Official visits also seem clustered in the south, suggesting two possibilities.One is that infrastructure projects are spatially targeted to the south, as some scholars have argued (Abdulai, 2017).The second is that politicians (namely Akufo-Addo) focus official business closer to the capital for efficiency purposes and focus other types of campaign activity in other parts of the country.Across all types, Greater Accra (197) and Ashanti (115) regions have the highest number of visits, demonstrating their importance in Ghana's electoral politics (Figure 1).Our second research question asks whether there are any notable differences between candidates.Akufo-Addo (545) recorded more campaign visits than Mahama (312).The difference is especially stark concerning rallies (Akufo-Addo (317) to Mahama (64)).Mahama was far more likely than Akufo-Addo to rely on courtesy calls (101 to 47) and interactions (135 to 64), while Akufo-Addo used official business visits more than Mahama (117 to 12).While Akufo-Addo appeared dependent on rallies in 2016, he supplemented these visits with official business in 2020, outpacing rallies 115-97.The data, as well as interviews with NDC activists, suggest significant political learning by Mahama: he increased his number of campaign visits from 53 in 2016-259 in 2020 and performed much better in the election.The NDC won 137 parliamentary seats in 2020, an increase of 31 seats.Mahama's total vote share increased to 47.36% in 2020 from 44.53% in 2016.These visits were distributed across the country, though we see a net increase in the western (Western, Western North) and eastern (Volta, Bono East) parts of the country.Akufo-Addo's activity appears to decrease in the north in 2020 compared to 2016, even though his total number of visits stayed relatively the same (264 down from 280).One party activist explained that Akufo-Addo relied far more on his running mate Mahamadu Bawumia, who is from the north, to campaign on his behalf in 2020 (Figure 2).

Connecting with constituents
Campaign visits offer candidates the chance to communicate directly with citizens, confronting crises and offering a plan for the future.Both candidates finished their campaigns in Greater Accra, visiting markets, neighbourhoods, and religious sites across the city.Akufo-Addo spent far more of his time on sod-cutting and commissioning projects, which allowed the NPP to use state resources to visit different parts of the country. 3To a much lesser extent, Mahama used this to his advantage in 2016, demonstrating the power of incumbency.
These visits also point to a less obvious trend: the emergence of Ashanti and Greater Accra Region as 'campaign kingmakers'.With the rapidly growing population of Kumasi and Accra, candidates can mobilise voters from around the country in these population hubs (many still return to their hometowns to place their votes).For example, Mahama spent significant time visiting the Ashanti Region in 2020 (far more than in 2016), long considered an NPP stronghold.But he visited specific constituencies that fit into his broader campaign narrative, including visits to zongos and cosmopolitan neighbourhoods, especially with residents from the North.As one-party activist notes, 'Power passes through Kumasi to Accra'. 4  Akufo-Addo used his campaign events as accountability tours.For example, at a campaign stop in Eastern Region, he stated, I am asking the people of Ghana to assess me on the basis of my record, and, if they are satisfied with it, they should give me an opportunity to do more for them by voting for me.(10/2/20) 5   The status of incumbency forced opposition candidate Mahama into a different role in the accountability relationship: as a listener rather than a reporter of performance.In the early stages of campaign season, Mahama went on a 'listening tour', seeking to distinguish his current campaign from  his 2016 incumbency campaign and Akufo-Addo's 2020 campaign.For example, at a campaign event in Greater Accra, he explained, One major regret I have is not speaking directly to the people during my time in office, and so that vacuum was filled with a lot of propaganda.So, this time when I come, I will go around and directly speak to the people on what we are doing and some of our policies.(11/3/20) Campaign tours also provide the candidates the chance to literally 'see' and 'experience' the progress or lack thereof in the country.As Akufo-Addo quipped in 2016, 'Our roads are bad.The president is campaigning by helicopter, but I campaign by road, so I know the condition of roads in the country'.(12/2/16) Campaign visits offer one of the few mechanisms of accountability that Ghanaian citizens have to help change public policies.For example, politicians often abandon development projects, especially those of previous presidents.To change this narrative, Mahama promised to complete all abandoned projects and used this to his advantage when touring the country.On a visit to the Western North region, he tells his audience, 'I am disappointed traveling on the Benchema-Oseikojokrom road, still in this really terrible state.We had begun work on the road when I was in office, but the Akufo-Addo government decided to stop the project' (2/19/20).This demonstrates how Mahama promises accountability by directly responding to the needs and interests of the constituents, with the campaign visit offering a chance to explain his agenda.

The importance of occupational and associational groups
Mahama has never wavered from his goal to continue the legacy of Jerry John Rawlings and 'open up the north'.His decisions on the campaign trail bear this out.In his inaugural campaign speech in 2016, he promised to make the Tamale Airport the hub of the annual Hajj pilgrimage, claiming to 'open up the Northern Region to the rest of the world' (8/9/16).These appeals build off the legacy of first president Kwame Nkrumah, who sought to move the country forward by extending infrastructural development to the North.For example, Mahama tied the building of a hospital in Tamale to Nkrumah's legacy, 'On this day, I want to salute him for his tireless and monumental contribution to our nation's history' (9/21/2020). 6 It is important to note that politicians do not just campaign for the votes in the Northern Regions.They go to neighbourhoodszongos and squatter settlementsin Ghana's largest cities where northerners live to mobilise support (Paller, 2019a).For the NDC, this is part of their narrative to encompass a party for 'all other tribes' beyond the Ashanti.For example, toward the very end of the 2016 campaign season, Mahama explained to a zongo community his plans to construct a railway line to facilitate the haulage of goods from the Tema Port (in the South) to the Northern Region (12/6/16).
Akufo-Addo had the opposite task: to convince Northerners and residents of zongos that the NPP is a party open to them and that there is social space beyond just the Asante.He is often accused of being elitist and aloof, often highlighted during campaign visits.While Mahama calmly interacts with ordinary people, Akufo-Addo brings his presidential chair wherever he goes.In an attempt to win over support, he established the Zongo Development Fund in 2017 and relied on Islamic leaders as intermediaries when he visited their neighbourhoods (2/16/16).At a rally in Nima, Accra, he stated, Since 1957, Zongos have never been mentioned in Ghana's budget, but my first budget will provide money for the Zongo Development Fund.I will restore the Islamic teacher allowance.
By invoking the concept of 'restoration', Akufo-Addo connected his policies to a proud past, while also pandering for votes from the 'Muslim constituency' (10/11/16).He followed this up with the creation of the Ministry of Inner-City and Zongo Development once in office, and told residents of Manhyia North in Ashanti, 'There are better things in store for the Zongos, and I, therefore, urge you to keep me in power so that I have more time to do more for the Zongos' (8/1/20).
While Mahama enjoyed an advantage among Northerners and Zongo residents, he had to catch up with appeals to cocoa farmers.On his visit in 2016, he outlined a new cocoa policy in the country (10/28/16).The NPP criticised the NDC administration for its handling of the cocoa industry, especially the policy to cancel bonuses to cocoa farmers.At a rally in the Western North Region, Akufo-Addo campaigned, 'Under Mahama, the cocoa sector is in decline.When, God-willing, you give me the opportunity, the good work President Kufuor did for the growth of the cocoa sector is one I am also going to emulate ' (8/11/16).Yet, at a rally in the Eastern Region, Akufo-Addo catered to other farmers by claiming 'the times of overreliance on cocoa are over' (7/4/ 16) and to Bono Region farmers, 'The same priority attention that has been given to the cultivation of cocoa over the years will be given to the production of cashews' (3/21/16).
Throughout the two campaign seasons, political parties targeted key associational and social groups on their visits.Most notable were fisherfolk, cocoa farmers, footballers, small-scale miners, market women, and spare parts dealers.During the 2016 campaign, the issue of small-scale mining was a flashpoint.Both candidates confronted the situation, with Akufo-Addo stating, 'I was here in Obuasi to say that Galamsey, which I prefer to call small-scale mining, will be regularized to ensure that the youth all find work to do' (7/ 15/16).Mahama also campaigned on this and promised to set up a gold mining board in every district to streamline small-scale mining (10/3/20).
Reaching out and appealing to fisherfolk is more than public policy and messagingit is a strategic decision to formalise associational groups and incorporate them into the party's organisational structure.The NPP relied on this strategy in 2016 to make inroads into the Greater Accra, Central, and Western Regionsall with large populations of swing voters.For example, at a campaign event in Elmina, Akufo-Addo explained, 'We are going to restore the Fisheries Management Committees.They will operate, as originally conceived, under the leadership of the chief fishermen, so that the issues of premix fuel and outboard motors will be under the direct control of the fishermen' (5/3/16).Alternatively, at a campaign stop in the Oti Region, Mahama catered to their needs and recognised them as a symbol of national pride, 'Fisherfolk are important to the development of this country.My government will implement policies that will ease the financial burden on them, grow their business and also enable them to work in peace' (8/25/20).
By focusing entirely on political parties and the role of brokers (see, for example, Brierley & Nathan, 2022), most analyses miss how campaign season offers the chance for occupational and social groups to be recognised, providing them with important legitimacy in their communities.Local opinion leaders spend lots of time and energyeither as party activists or with themto get their interest group on the official list of invitees when campaigns come to town.This can help integrate their needs into public policy or deliver handouts like vehicles, office space, or other particularistic goods.For example, when Mahama visited Central Region in 2020, he noted, 'I am personally committed to enabling a partnership with the Council for Private Schools that is mutually beneficial to them and the state' (3/15/20).This public acknowledgement signals a powerful form of recognition by the candidate and affirms the partnership between the NDC and the group.
Mahama made a similar proclamation in Bono East with a group of mechanics, 'We are going to collaborate with the Eureka Garages Association … and all other garage associations in the country to build the training centres with the modern diagnostic machine to train their members and be able to stay in business' (9/23/20).These interactions have symbolic power: by reaching out to mechanics, Mahama catered to a specific group of people and recognised them as important stakeholders in Ghana's democracy while also promoting an industrial and job creation strategy to modernise the sector for the twenty-first century.

The re-emergence of traditional authorities
Perhaps most interestingly, we find that campaigns are reaching out to and relying on the support of traditional authorities far more than they have in past campaigns.In 2016, we documented 13 campaign stops that explicitly mentioned traditional authorities; the number increased to 70 by 2020.One reason for this is that local communities have come to rely far more on traditional authorities for basic development as liberal democracy has failed to deliver a 'democratic dividend' (Bob-Milliar, 2014b).But another reason is that chiefs are far less scared to be aligned with political parties.In fact, having strong connections to parties in power can even bolster their legitimacy at the grassroots level.There is now an expectation that any time a politician visits a constituency, they must make a courtesy call on the traditional authority; this was consistently mentioned by activists as an important strategy.
Presidents and traditional authorities have a long and complicated history in Ghana (Sackeyfio-Lenoch, 2014).However, during campaigns, the relationship is simplified: Politicians rely on chiefs to deliver votes, while chiefs use the relationship with politicians to legitimate their rule (Balag'kutu, 2022).While chiefs are not supposed to play a role in partisan politics, these lines break down during campaigns.For example, Akufo-Addo is explicit in his message to the Asante chiefs during the 2016 campaign, 'If the chiefs and people of Ashanti hear my cry and give me their support, all the abandoned projects I enumerated will be completed during my stay in office' (7/15/16).
But campaigns also offer chiefs the space to serve as community spokespeople.For example, during a visit to the Ekumfi Traditional Council in 2016, the acting President of the Traditional Council told Akufo-Addo that 'nothing had been done' to build a landing beach for the district and that children needed a school feeding programme (11/2/16).However, Mahama claimed throughout the campaign that these sessions seemed to work and helped him be accountable to the people.At a campaign stop in Eastern Region, he explained, 'After chiefs told me about the deplorable roads, I promised to fix them for the evacuation of people and goods, especially cocoa, to the marketing centers to earn foreign exchange for the country' (4/14/16).

Conclusion
We have shown how electoral campaigns provide social and occupational groups the opportunities to participate in and shape the Ghanaian state.Moreover, we have placed political parties in their appropriate historical context.In this way, electoral campaigns are more than events that occur every four years; instead, they are chances for parties to draw from a rich ideological tradition and offer a vision for the future.This theoretical point generalises.For example, in the United States, Donald Trump built off a long tradition in the Republican Party that uses racial anxiety as a campaign strategy, offering a repertoire of action based on white identity to mobilise voters (Abramowitz & McCoy, 2019).Similarly, opposition candidates in Tanzania countered the populist and authoritarian leader John Magufuli by projecting a new vision of the country that directly tied to its proud past (Kwayu, 2023).Failing to account for these historical narratives and their roles in mobilising support would lead scholars to the wrong conclusions about voting behaviour and political mobilisation.
The findings also contribute to a large literature in political science about when and how campaigns matter (Jacobson, 2015).Moreover, they do so in the context of African elections, which are understudied yet contain campaign strategies of mobilisation and persuasion evident across the world (Horowitz, 2022;Nathan, 2019).In particular, this helps explain the meaning of campaigns to local populations, as well as the mechanisms through which incumbency, brokerage, and grassroots organising work.The next step is to assess the effects of these campaigns on voting behaviour to explain the extent to which these campaign visits helped politicians win at the polls.This will assess the substantive impact of grassroots mobilisation (Bischof & Kurer, 2023).
Finally, we offer new insights into the meaning of campaign rallies by situating them in a wider social process.In line with the special issue, we find that rallies serve as complex communicative events, at which multiple actors coand counter-produce messages in numerous ways.But we also find that parties are turning to other strategies to gain support that are more targeted and potentially more cost effective, including courtesy calls with local notables and interactions with interest groups.Electoral campaigns are relying on diverse forms of campaign visits to mobilise support.
Candidates extended the communicative and representative elements of the traditional rally through socially embedded practices.This further demonstrates how local actors use political parties for personal empowerment, and how political parties are embedded in power dynamics external to their own making.For example, parties are mechanisms of legitimacy for traditional authorities, enforcing their power at the grassroots level.This provides a new way of thinking about electoral campaigns and rallies beyond a narrow understanding of vote margins and electoral mobilisation.We also demonstrate how electoral campaigns serve as accountability mechanisms by bringing representatives and constituents face-to-face to engage in meaningful dialogue and deliberationor at the very least, 'see' the shortcomings of government performance.Focusing on the social embeddedness of elections and distinct forms of campaigns provides a framework for understanding the social conditions of political mobilisation.

Notes
1.A recent study records a 59% increase in the cost of running for political office between 2012 and 2016.The cost of running for parliament was estimated at GHC 4 million and the cost of running a presidential campaign was estimated at about GHC 575 million (CDD-Ghana -'Reform Recommendations & Roadmap for Implementation Produced by Stakeholder Working Group').2. Horowitz's (2022) analysis of Kenya's 2007 election focuses exclusively on campaign rallies.Brierley and Kramon (2020) document different campaign strategies, but is limited because it draws from self-reported surveys.Rauschenbauch (2015) catalogs campaign visits in Ghana's 2012 election from newspaper reports.3. The incumbent president is allowed by law to campaign and use public funds to rent rally grounds, state vehicles to transport supporters, and honor chiefs and other notables.There have been some court cases to challenge these practices but have been limited in efficacy.4. In the news analysis, Greater Accra had 17 events in 2016 and 45 in 2020.
Ashanti had 8 in 2016 and 10 in 2020.One reason for this is that the media covers more events in Greater Accra. 5. List of news articles are included in Appendix A. 6.Akufo-Addo used similar rhetoric on his campaign through the Ashanti Region in 2016, which he called 'The Restoration of Hope Tour' (10/23/16).

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Frequency of stop types (Across all elections and candidates).Figures by Nicholas Dorward.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Total stops by candidate and election.Figures by Nicholas Dorward.
Figure 2. Total stops by candidate and election.Figures by Nicholas Dorward.

Table 1 .
Campaign visits by type and election.

Table 2 .
Stop type by region.

Table 3 .
Visit type by candidate.