Person

Richard Crook

Richard Crook

Emeritus Fellow

Professor Richard Crook holds a PhD from London University (LSE) and is the coauthor of Democracy and Decentralisation in South Asia and West Africa (1998) and The law, legal institutions and the protection of land rights in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire (2007).

He previously taught at the University of Birmingham (Centre of West African Studies), Glasgow University and was the Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (University of London). His areas of specialisation include: governance and administration (particularly decentralisation); state-civil society relations, public service reform and access to justice and land rights particularly in West Africa and South Asia.

Research

Project

Power and Politics in Africa

This large research programme seeks to identify systems for exercising power, conducting politics and building states in sub-Saharan Africa that will offer better outcomes in terms of poverty reduction than the current arrangements.

Project

South-North Non-governmental Networks

This research project looked at non-governmental public actors and how they engage with multi-level policy processes which bridge Southern and Northern contexts. It also investigated the impacts and outcomes of these engagements.

Publications

Working Paper

Popular Concepts of Justice and Fairness in Ghana: Testing the Legitimacy of New or Hybrid Forms of State Justice

Popular Concepts of Justice and Fairness in Ghana: Testing the Legitimacy of New or Hybrid Forms of State Justice, Working Paper 14

The provision of effective, legitimate, and accessible justice through judicial institutions and more generally through the ‘rule of law’ is probably one of the most fundamental of all public goods expected from a well-governed state. By ‘rule of law’ we mean more than just the...

Richard Crook
Richard Crook & 2 others

3 January 2020

Journal Article

Democratic Decentralisation, Clientelism and Local Taxation in Ghana

IDS Bulletin 48.2

It is generally assumed by advocates of democratic decentralisation that maximising locally-raised revenue sources will help to enhance accountability through a closer and more legitimate relationship betweenthe local government authority and citizens. Research on Ghana and other African...

16 August 2019