Living with diversity: The peaceful management of horizontal inequalities in Ghana

While recent scholarship has highlighted the role of horizontal inequalities in provoking political instability and violent group mobilisation, some countries have been able to prevent their ethnic, religious or regional inequalities from escalating into widespread violence at the national level. This obviously raises the question: under what circumstances are horizontal inequalities more likely to provoke violent group action? In order to understand the linkages between horizontal inequalities and the emergence of violent conflict, we need to analyse not only countries where violent conflicts have emerged but also countries which have been able to manage their ethno-regional tensions and inequalities relatively peacefully. The current paper aims to do just that for the case of Ghana. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.