Trends, Drivers, and Complexities of Policy Change: The Case of Ghana’s Narcotics Policy Landscape

The complexities involved in the policy making process in Ghana have not only been studied from different theoretical perspectives, but the field continues to attract attention from other scholars who have been focusing on the role of policy actors in the policy making process. While recognizing the importance of scholarly works that have examined Ghana's public policy landscape with reference to the policy process, the aspect of policy change, which constitutes one of the key elements of policy studies, has not been given adequate attention in Ghana's policy literature. This chapter attempts to address this scholarly imbalance by drawing on policy theories such as policy paradigm theory (orders of change), policy entrepreneurship, and other drivers of policy change such as ideas, institutions, networks, and social structures to examine Ghana's drug or narcotics policy across time and space. The chapter finds that these policy theories provide utility in explaining the trends, drivers, and complexities of Ghana's drug policy process and change.