Claiming the city: Citizenship and political connections in African neighborhoods

Abstract

• Residents make claims on formal structures, non-state authorities, and political parties. • Neighborhoods rely on local political connections to access state power. • Claim-making strategies depend on neighborhood class structure. • Poor neighborhoods rely on voting blocs, concerned youth associations and political clientelism. • Wealthy neighborhoods bypass government to leverage connections with politicians. Rapid urbanization is changing the way Africans experience and engage the state in their everyday lives, creating new opportunities for urban claim-making. But it also creates the conditions for local capture. In their quest for rights and services, how do neighborhoods navigate these rapidly changing political environments? How does this vary across poor, middle-class, and wealthy neighborhoods? Based on 16 focus group discussions and 87 key informant interviews in eight neighborhoods in Lagos (Nigeria) and Accra (Ghana), we find that residents in low-income neighborhoods seek direct connections through voting blocs and the instrumental use of their concerned youth associations, while high-income neighborhoods use personal connections and leverage their residence associations to influence state power. We argue that a neighborhood’s class structure shapes the political connections that residents have to the state, thereby shaping the everyday strategies that residents use to claim citizenship.