International constraints

Some scholars contend that international constraints in the form of trade agreements and aid conditionality shape trade policy in Africa more than elite interests or interest group lobbying (Melamed Reference Melamed2006; Mkandawire Reference Mkandawire and Joseph1999; Olukoshi Reference Olukoshi, Soludo and Chang2004; Soludo & Ogbu Reference Soludo, Ogbu, Soludo, Ogbu and Chang2004). According to their logic, Ghanaian and Senegalese elites pursued more moderate policies because they feared retaliatory trade measures more than their Cameroonian peers. This hypothesis seems implausible. State elites in all three countries had no grounds for fearing retaliatory measures. According to Doremus-Mege et al. (Reference Doremus-Mege, Gaudard, Homran, Hermelin and Grodent2005), ‘exports from [West African countries were] too insignificant’ for European countries or the United States to bother using the WTO dispute settlement body to impose retaliatory tariffs. ‘Costs for such actions [were] high, compared to the modest advantages, or even possible damages. Exports of poultry cuts … [were] only a drop in the ocean of the European economy.’ Furthermore, ‘it would [have been] difficult for the EU to provide political justification for such a procedure against [African] countries, which are among the poorest in the world’ (Doremus-Mege et al. Reference Doremus-Mege, Gaudard, Homran, Hermelin and Grodent2005: 12). In addition, as part of the WTO, West African countries have the right to impose tariffs ranging from 79% to 230% on imports (ibid.), and the WTO provides leeway for countries experiencing import surges. Finally, in the context of the avian influenza pandemic of 2004, limits on poultry imports were widely accepted in the international trading arena.

A second mechanism through which international forces may shape trade policy in Africa is the quest for international aid (Mkandawire Reference Mkandawire and Joseph1999; Olukoshi Reference Olukoshi, Soludo and Chang2004). Soludo and Ogbu (Reference Soludo, Ogbu, Soludo, Ogbu and Chang2004) suggest that, ‘because most African states depend on bilateral and multilateral aid for basic financing …, it is impossible for [them] to have an autonomous policy process’. Indeed, popular accounts blame the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for the Ghanaian government's unwillingness to impose higher tariffs on imported poultry (ACDIC 2007; Atarah Reference Atarah2005).

Although this claim may be partly true, there is no clear connection between the level of aid dependence across the three countries and trade policy outcomes. Senegal received $92 per capita in overseas development aid (ODA) in 2004, while Ghana received only $69 (OECD DCD-DAC). Cameroon received less than both countries at $45. Furthermore, in 2004 ODA was equivalent to 54% of Senegal's government expenditures, whereas it equalled only 30% and 25% in Ghana and Cameroon respectively (Bräutigam & Knack Reference Bräutigam and Knack2004). Given these numbers, we would expect Senegalese elites to have been far more hesitant to impose trade barriers than they were, and Ghanaian elites to have behaved more like their Cameroonian counterparts. Ghana's decision to keep its borders open to poultry imports was not the result of a unique dependence on international aid. Ghanaian elites may have been more willing to accommodate international financial institution (IFI) demands than Senegalese or Cameroonian ones, but this more likely stemmed from shared understandings and priorities than the coercive power of IFIs.

Clientelist imperatives

According to van de Walle (Reference van de Walle2001), Bienen (Reference Bienen1990) and Bhagwati (Reference Bhagwati, Lewis and Kallab1986), African elites use trade policy primarily to purse clientelist ends. By imposing barriers like import quotas and complicated permit and licensing systems, politicians make access to import opportunities artificially scarce. Success as an importer then relies on state patronage in the form of permits, exemptions, and the like (Bates Reference Bates1981; Bienen Reference Bienen1990; van de Walle Reference van de Walle2001). As a result, free trade is ‘anathema to regimes that rely on the politically mediated distribution of access to state resources’ (van de Walle Reference van de Walle2001: 52).

Before closing their borders to poultry imports, Senegal and Cameroon illustrated well how politicians could turn regulated imports into a clientelist resource. By neglecting sanitary inspections, failing to impose existing import taxes, and turning a blind eye to lax refrigeration practices, Senegalese politicians and civil servants allowed poultry importers to earn artificially high profits. These importers included politically influential Mouride merchants,Footnote ⁵ powerful party supporters, and even politicians (Gning Reference Gning2004). In return, importers could provide financial resources and mobilise voters for the dominant party. According to observers (Anonymous A & B ints.), when the government cracked down on refrigeration requirements in September 2002, poultry importers used their political alliances to reverse the policy within a month. Yet a mere three years later, the government went against the interests of well-connected importers and pursued a policy that favoured farmers of relatively humble means and connections. Because the ban halted all frozen poultry imports, it effectively prevented the government from using politically mediated access as a way to preserve alliances with powerful importers. From a clientelist perspective this is very difficult to explain. Senegal's political system changed in 2000, when the Wade administration came to power, but if anything, the party's ties to Mouride traders had grown stronger between 2002, when it gave in to pressure from importers, and 2005 (Mbow Reference Mbow2008), when it banned imports.

Before dramatically cutting imports at the end of 2004, Cameroon maintained an official quota of 4,000 tons of poultry imports per year (Doremus-Mege et al. Reference Doremus-Mege, Gaudard, Homran, Hermelin and Grodent2005). Yet, according to the FAO (n.d.), Cameroon imported 44,851 tons of chicken meat in 2004. Because of a combination of corruption, political favours, and scarce customs personnel and resources, poultry imports were not regularly tracked, inspected, or taxed.Footnote ⁶ Existing import barriers allowed Cameroonian officials at all levels of the administration and bureaucracy to reward specific importers and earn kickbacks by ignoring the very barriers they imposed. As in Senegal, when Cameroonian politicians halted imports in 2005, they sacrificed their ability to reward specific importers. Yet there is no evidence that the make-up of Cameroon's clientelist networks shifted dramatically during the 2000s.

One factor may help explain, from a clientelist perspective, why the governments changed their policy. According to one Senegalese importer (Anonymous C int.), competition in the poultry import business had grown so dramatically by 2004 that the original importers were no longer making large profits. The relative value of politically mediated access to imports diminished. Politicians' and civil servants' generosity made exemptions and favours a less important form of political patronage. To make them valuable once again would require limiting their availability. A ban on poultry imports and stricter tax and quota systems could potentially accomplish this. However, Senegal's poultry ban appears to have entirely stopped imports. And in Cameroon, pressure from producer associations successfully forced the government to overturn any exemptions. It appears, therefore, that the potential clientelist advantages of restricting poultry imports did not materialise.

Those who emphasise clientelism's role in shaping government policy, particularly in competitive political systems, often focus on ethnic or communal calculations and alliances in trying to explain policy outcomes. In these particular cases, however, there is little evidence that ethnic calculations or alliances determined policy. In Senegal, where the Wade government had proven particularly adept at using Mouride patrons to secure votes (Mbow Reference Mbow2008), the government nonetheless went against the best interests of many Mouride traders.

In Cameroon, both poultry producers and importers were Bamileke businessmen,Footnote ⁷ who in the past enjoyed close ties with those in power (Konings 2002). However, after Paul Biya came to power in 1982, the government favoured members of the Beti ethnic group in economic and political affairs. Many Bamileke joined the opposition in response or withdrew from the formal economy (Henry Reference Henry1991; Minorities at Risk Project 2006). Still, the Minorities at Risk Project suggests that many Bamileke businessmen remain important Biya supporters. In other words, no one has clearly established whether members of the Bamileke ethnic group still influence the president. In addition, without further research, it is difficult to assess whether Bamileke importers held greater sway with the government in the mid 2000s than Bamileke poultry producers, as both are part of the influential business class. From a clientelist or ethnic alliance point of view, neither importers nor producers enjoyed a clear advantage in shaping Cameroonian trade policy.

In Ghana, by contrast, semi-industrial poultry producers were well placed to influence government policy. Many of them operated massive farm complexes, like foreign-owned Farmer George and locally owned Darko Farms, and were major Ghanaian businessmen, presumably with connections to those in government. For example, the Rev. Dr Kwabena Darko of Darko Farms ran for president in 1992, and after 2001 served on the board of the Bank of Ghana. Furthermore, industrial poultry production was concentrated in Ghana's Western Region. This largely Ashanti region provided widespread support for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) when it controlled government from 2000 to 2008. Despite the apparent links between the government and domestic producers, the government did little to protect poultry producers from international competition.

Clientelism and ethnic calculations undoubtedly shape government policy in many African countries, much of the time. Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana are not exceptions. Nonetheless, while a clientelist logic clearly shaped how the Cameroonian and Senegalese governments responded to poultry imports in the period before 2005, it cannot explain their later about-face. Similarly, ethnic calculations in Senegal and Ghana would lead us to expect the opposite of what actually occurred. These findings suggest that, while clientelism and ethnicity can explain many outcomes, they are not always the most important force shaping policy decisions.

Developmental goals and state imperatives

As Grindle and Thomas (Reference Grindle and Thomas1991) and Drope (Reference Drope2007) suggest, elite decisions may be guided instead by development priorities or ideologies. In some countries, elites may be especially committed to free trade as a means of promoting economic development, while in others they tend to prefer protectionist, or more state interventionist, policies. In many ways, Ghana fits the former category, while Cameroon, and to a lesser extent Senegal, fit the latter.

As early as 1983, Ghanaian leaders showed greater commitment to liberal economic reform than their counterparts in neighbouring states (van de Walle Reference van de Walle2001: 11). Over the course of the next two decades, leaders became even more resolved to use liberal economic policies, including free trade, to boost Ghana's economic performance. In 2010, Ghana had an Index of Economic Freedom ranking of 60·2, or moderately free, compared with Senegal's 54·6 and Cameroon's 52·3, which placed them in the mostly unfree category (Heritage Foundation n.d.). Furthermore, while the WTO's most recent trade policy reviews characterise Ghana as having significantly liberalised trade in the 2000s, they imply that there has been relatively little change in Senegal and a general resistance to reform in Cameroon. By the early 2000s, Ghana had one of the most trade-reliant economies in Africa with a trade-to-GDP ratio of 103%, compared with Senegal's 66% and Cameroon's 52·4% (World Bank 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). This suggests that the Senegalese and Cameroonian governments had a far greater propensity towards protectionism than the Ghanaian government. As a result, the country comparison offered in this article supports Grindle & Thomas' (Reference Grindle and Thomas1991) and Drope's (Reference Drope2007) hypotheses regarding the importance of elite ideologies.

During the period under examination, official discourse regarding food self-sufficiency in Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana followed this pattern. Cameroonian leaders had always advocated food self-sufficiency (Benjamin & Devarajan Reference Benjamin and Devarajan1985: 6; van de Walle Reference van de Walle1989), and Senegalese leaders saw it as a key part of national sovereignty. The Ghanaian government, by contrast, emphasized the potential pitfalls of trade protectionism in its 2004 National Trade Policy and did not, until after 2008, express any clear commitment to food self-sufficiency in official documents (Sharma Reference Sharma, Sharma and Morrison2011: 137–41).

If we look at intra-country variation, however, we see that not all industries, even within the food sector, are equally protected. For example, the Cameroonian government has not restricted rice imports. As van de Walle (Reference van de Walle1989: 581) writes, ‘as elsewhere in West Africa, Cameroon has promoted the object of food self-sufficiency inter alia … while at the same time allowing a rapid growth in consumer demand for cheaper imported [food]’. Nor have the Senegalese and Cameroonian governments imposed barriers on dairy imports, which threaten the livelihood of livestock producers just as much as poultry imports (Broutin et al. Reference Broutin, Sokhona, Tandia and Ba2000). So while the two governments may be more inclined to protect local producers, elites' attitudes have not automatically translated into trade barriers.

Moreover, the Ghanaian government is perfectly capable of imposing trade barriers on certain food imports. While it has resisted poultry producers' demands, it imposed a temporary ban on the import of tomato paste and concentrates in 2007, in response to a similar import surge in the early 2000s, citing unfair trade practices (OUSTR 2009: 212). It is beyond the scope of this article to examine the government's reaction to tomato imports, but the response suggests that even Ghanaian leaders can be persuaded to restrict imports.

Democracy

Differences in the level of political competition across the three countries provide a final potential explanation for the governments' divergent policies. In a cross-national study of developing countries, Milner and Kubota (Reference Milner and Kubota2005) found that democracy increases the likelihood that governments will remove trade barriers. They attribute this to a shift in politicians' electoral calculations. As political competition increases, the median voter looks increasingly like the workers and poor who benefit from lower barriers on food and consumer imports, and politicians respond accordingly. Milner and Kubota emphasise that this process occurs even if the public does not openly push for freer trade. Politicians simply begin to realise that the narrow support of particular producers is less valuable than the broader support of the working population.

Ghanaian politicians may well have started to make this shift in the past two decades as a result of increasing political competition. Ghana today has one of the most competitive political systems in Africa. In much of Africa, democratic competition seems to entail primarily mobilising voters along ethnic lines, thus rendering a median voter theorem irrelevant. In Ghana, parties have an ethnic tinge and certainly engage in clientelism, but have increasingly clear ideological agendas and different policy preferences (Elischer Reference Elischer2008). In Senegal, by contrast, regular electoral contests have not resulted in significant competition since 2000, and votes still appear to be guided by ethnic, regional or religious calculations (Magrin Reference Magrin2007). In Cameroon, competition is even less common. While the government holds periodic elections, limits on political and civil freedoms, and fraud, prevent an actual turnover in power. It is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that politicians in Senegal and Cameroon do not need to appeal to the median voter by facilitating access to cheap imports.

Despite the apparent strength of the hypothesis that democracy makes for freer trade in explaining variation, details from the three cases suggest it is not an entirely sufficient explanation. First, as already noted, the same Ghanaian politicians who resisted banning poultry imports banned tomato concentrate imports despite their appeal to consumers. Second, the executive branch's resistance to the original parliamentary directive to increase taxes on poultry imports suggests that Ghanaian politicians did not agree on the electoral benefits of banning poultry imports. Third, while Milner and Kubota contend that governments will pursue free trade policies even if voters do not push for them, it remains unclear how their hypothesis holds up in instances where voters actually push for trade barriers. In my survey of poultry import-related news coverage in Ghana, Senegal and Cameroon,Footnote ⁸ I encountered no reports of consumers organising to maintain low trade barriers. A Ghanaian editorial calling local poultry producers ‘special interests’ was the only indication of consumer commitment to keeping borders open. By contrast, as shown below, in Cameroon and Senegal producers were able to change policy by winning the support of at least some vocal, organised consumers. Because this did not happen in Ghana, we cannot test whether it would have been sufficient to override politicians' desire to appeal to the median voter.

Barriers to collective action

In some ways, semi-industrial poultry producers in Senegal, Cameroon and Ghana were equally well situated to overcome collective action dilemmas. Across West Africa, intensive poultry production is limited to a small group of peri-urban entrepreneurs. The smallness of the sector and the proximity of producers make it easy to organise. Because each producer has invested heavily in poultry production and cannot reasonably assume that the group will achieve its goals without his or her contribution, free riding is not a major problem. Because producers are located near each other, in areas with good roads and telephone communications, they face few practical constraints to organising. Furthermore, because they are often relatively educated, they have the skills needed to manage lobbying campaigns. Poultry producer associations are often stronger than many lobbying groups because they also provide services to their members. Producers generally pay dues, which gives them access to veterinary consultations, and lower priced feed and supplies. This means that the associations have closer ties to their members and more resources than they would otherwise. Finally, national poultry organisations in West Africa are connected to a regional network of poultry producer associations, which lobbies regional governance bodies and disseminates information and strategies to national associations (Gning Reference Gning2005).

Despite these similarities, producers in Ghana and Senegal faced greater barriers to collective action than in Cameroon. Most Cameroonian producers were engaged in medium-scale poultry production, and few if any were able to adapt to competition from poultry imports by decreasing production or switching to egg-laying operations. If poultry imports did not stop, none of Cameroon's semi-industrial producers could survive. Producers thus had nothing to gain by foregoing collective efforts or accepting alternate forms of government support. In Senegal and Ghana, by contrast, some poultry producers were able to adapt to imports and benefit from government largesse.

In Senegal, the overall economic impact of imports ‘was mitigated, in part, by the conversion of some broiler operations into laying chicken operation’ (Sharma et al. Reference Sharma, Nyange, Duteurtre and Morgan2005: 3). Between 1999 and 2002, egg production became far more dynamic than broiler production. This allowed some producers to weather the import surge in frozen chicken. It also meant that after the government banned frozen egg imports, those producers had little reason to continue to actively support the FAFA's efforts to ban frozen imported chicken. Semi-industrial poultry producers, therefore, lacked the organisational cohesion of their Cameroonian counterparts. This may help explain why they created a specific semi-industrial association in 2004.

In Ghana, a similar egg/broiler division emerged, but poultry producers were even more divided by competing interests and their ability to respond to imports. As noted earlier, some of Ghana's poultry producers, like Farmer George and Darko Farms, operated large-scale, industrial production facilities. These were well placed to adapt to imports by expanding egg-laying operations, producing their own inputs to lower production costs, and using new technologies to improve efficiency. Furthermore, they could tap into the international poultry business for support in a way that smaller producers could not. For example, Global Solutions Services, a US company, purchased Farmer George and proceeded in 2004 to build the largest poultry houses in West Africa (Sangari Reference Sangari2004). Darko Farms also built international ties, but its international alliance created a conflict of interest vis-à-vis imports. In the late 1990s, Darko Farms formed an alliance with the largest American poultry producer, Tyson Foods Incorporated, which allowed them to buy inputs from Tyson at very competitive rates. In return, Tyson helped expand Darko's export capacity in West Africa (Food & Beverage Reporter 1999). Activists claim that Tyson was simultaneously exporting significant quantities of frozen chicken legs to Ghana. These claims seem well founded. Tyson is by far the largest American poultry exporter and American exports to Ghana reached 10,000 tons by 2002 (Flake & Ashitey Reference Flake and Ashitey2008). Given its ties to Tyson, Darko Farms probably had little interest in pushing for import barriers. Large-scale farmers' ambiguous attitude towards imports and their ability to adjust to them left the Ghana National Association of Poultry Farmers (GNAPF) fighting for import barriers without the direct support of Ghana's most influential poultry farmers.

While Cameroonian producers were united in their calls for import barriers, Senegalese and Ghanaian producers were divided. This allowed the Senegalese and Ghanaian governments to appease some producers by providing them with government representation and support for new poultry endeavours, thereby avoiding or delaying the implementation of drastic measures to cut imports. But differences in interest group cohesion cannot fully explain the divergent government responses across the three countries. Even the somewhat divided Senegalese producers managed to convince the Ministry of Agriculture and the government customs agency to fully enforce the cold chain from port to market in 2002. However, their efforts backfired when poultry importers and consumers pushed back, pressuring the government to reopen imports (Gning Reference Gning2004). To understand why their efforts failed and explain later government policy, we must look at differences in interest group strategies across the three countries.

Strategy

In the early 2000s, Senegalese producers focused on lobbying the government directly, without seeking to change consumers' attitudes and preferences. In doing so, they created a situation in which their gain was consumers' loss. With consumers and importers opposed to stopping imports, producers could not enjoy lasting influence with the government. By 2005, however, consumers' attitudes changed. Beginning in February 2004, Senegalese newspapers published articles warning consumers that poultry imports could carry avian influenza. Such reports were at best partially correct, although they reflected a widespread fear present in many developed and developing countries. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO 2004), frozen poultry imports were highly unlikely to carry the virus, and infected poultry, if properly cooked, was unlikely to transmit it to humans. These details notwithstanding, fear of the virus spread across Senegal over the next two years, as in other parts of the world. Vendors reported that consumers were reluctant to buy imported chicken in large quantities for parties and holidays (Le Soleil 8.11.2005). The organisers of large religious pilgrimages, like the gamou de Pire, worried that imported chicken might spark an influenza outbreak (Walfadjri 27.10.2005). And in October 2005, just days before the government banned poultry imports, the consumer watchdog SOS Consommateurs decried ‘the government's inertia’ in responding to avian influenza (Walfadjri 20.10.2005). While local producers did not orchestrate the campaign to raise consumer awareness of avian influenza, they nonetheless benefited. Once consumers felt they needed to be protected from imports, the interests of local producers and consumers aligned, and producers could push the government to ban imports without facing popular opposition.

In Cameroon, poultry producers did not wait for avian influenza to raise public awareness about the health threats of poultry imports. Immediately after its formation in 2003, ACDIC sought to provide evidence that rumours of food poisoning caused by frozen poultry imports were true. An analysis of 200 samples of frozen poultry by the Centre Pasteur, an independent private laboratory, revealed that ‘83·5 percent of the chicken pieces examined were not fit for human consumption’, as they contained salmonella, campyl bacteria, or other forms of contamination (ACDIC 2007). ACDIC used this health threat to launch a public relations campaign against what it called the ‘chickens of death’. This entailed distributing 10,000 brochures at urban markets with the words ‘Frozen chicken is dangerous!’, accompanied by a skull and crossbones. It also involved a word of mouth campaign, press releases, and rallies. The campaign was wildly successful. It ‘made the front pages of all the Cameroonian newspapers. Over 100 articles appeared and there were reports on the radio and on public television.’ Consumers began to purchase less imported chicken and were ‘acutely aware of the risk of the frozen food’ (ACDIC 2007).

With consumers on their side, producers benefited from the president's quest for legitimacy in the build-up to the 2004 presidential elections. The ACDIC exposed extensive corruption by the Minister of Agriculture and mobilised the public to demand better accountability vis-à-vis sanitary protections. At the same time, ACDIC leader Bernard Njonga was careful to never criticise the president. This created an opportunity for President Biya. Although the presidential election would undoubtedly return Biya to power, he still needed popular support. The poultry scandal allowed him to appear above the machinations of his ministers and poultry importers, and particularly attentive to public concerns. Furthermore, by allowing the ACDIC to conduct its campaign, he came across as more liberal and tolerant than those familiar with the electoral process claimed (Spiegel Online 19.9.2007).

Part of Cameroonian producers' success may have stemmed from their early decision to delegate responsibility for the anti-import campaign to agriculture activists who were not poultry producers. The ACDIC was a citizen's group dedicated to increasing public influence in politics and protecting citizen interests. It was thus able to successfully define itself less as a professional interest group and more as a protector of the common good. Ghanaian producers, on the other hand, and Senegalese producers to a lesser extent, were labelled as ‘special interest’ groups and seen as promoting their own economic concerns rather than the needs of the public.

In a survey of news coverage of the poultry sector in Ghana from 2000 onwards, I found no evidence that Ghanaian poultry producers ever sought to raise the health issue with the public. Ironically, even though the first newspaper article I encountered on producers' plight ran only one day after an article about a young boy who died of food poisoning from frozen chicken, the article focused only on producers' troubles. Furthermore, there is little evidence of a public relations campaign per se. Rather than focusing on the public, producers focused almost exclusively on parliament, the executive, and eventually the courts. As a result, they never enjoyed the widespread popular support that producers in Cameroon, and to a lesser extent Senegal, benefited from.

In addition, Ghanain producers did not benefit indirectly from a public avian influenza scare, as they did in Senegal. According to Flake and Ashitey (Reference Flake and Ashitey2008), public concerns over avian influenza briefly affected poultry consumption, including consumption of local poultry. Whereas in Senegal the press primed consumers to think that imports presented a greater risk, in Ghana consumers were suspicious of both local and imported poultry. To quell public concerns, ‘the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council (USAPEEC) developed and organized a marketing campaign to educate consumers on the safe handling and cooking of poultry in major city centers. A media campaign was developed to enhance these educational programs.’Footnote ⁹ Given that consumption of local poultry had also fallen, ‘the media campaign (radio, newspapers, leaflets) was supported by the local poultry association and the [Government of Ghana]. As a result of these efforts, consumption of poultry meat increased after a few months’ (Flakey & Ashitey Reference Flake and Ashitey2008), but domestic poultry producers had no public fears of avian flu-infected imports to organise around.

Bates (Reference Bates1981) and other early public choice scholars claimed that African consumers were one of the most important social forces shaping trade policy, because they could disrupt the political system through protest and riots. Milner and Kubota (Reference Milner and Kubota2005) take this claim further, contending that democracy gives consumers in developing countries even more power. These scholars assume, however, that consumers' preferences are fixed. The Cameroonian and Senegalese cases illustrate that this is not so. Through their campaigning and lobbying efforts, producers changed consumers' sense of their own self-interest, and were therefore able to build alliances with them. Interest group-focused studies of trade policy often fail to appreciate the dynamic nature of group interests and alliances (Healey & Robinson Reference Healey and Robinson1994; Soludo & Ogbu Reference Soludo, Ogbu, Soludo, Ogbu and Chang2004). In contrast, this study illustrates that cohesive producer groups can effectively reach consumers and create new alliances through which they can convince governments to change trade policy.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, poultry producers across West Africa faced a similar problem: how to survive the massive influx of cheap, frozen poultry. Producers in Senegal, Ghana and Cameroon stepped up to the challenge, pressuring their governments to change trade policy. While Cameroon took radical measures to cut imports, disregarding trade agreements and international expectations, Senegal and Ghana pursued more moderate policies. The Senegalese government banned imports only under the threat of avian influenza, and the Ghanaian government responded to producers' demands with more support for production but took no actions against imports.

This divergence occurred for several reasons. Government tolerance for protectionism was higher in Cameroon and Senegal, and their governments were more committed to food self-sufficiency. Furthermore, existing literature suggests that because democratic competition was more pronounced in Ghana, politicians would have been more inclined to favour policies that protected consumer interests over producer ones. Producers thus faced a much more difficult battle in Ghana than in Cameroon and Senegal. Nonetheless, as section two demonstrated, these differences in elite preferences and competition did not entirely determine government responses. They set the context in which producers had to push for protections, but ultimately, differences in producers' organisational cohesion and strategies played an important role in shaping policy outcomes.

My findings suggest that interest groups can influence government policy in Africa. However, their ability to do so is contingent on them building alliances with urban consumers. This suggests that Bates' public choice insights from 1981 may still be applicable to the study of trade policy in Africa today. Furthermore, this research indicates that the collective action dilemmas which undermine interest group influence in other parts of the world are at play in West Africa. It also suggests that we should not assume that African policy making is always uniquely neo-patrimonial or neo-colonial.

While this study has shown how African producers can respond to global market trends and force their governments to erect trade barriers, it has not addressed the sustainability or desirability of these barriers. It remains to be seen whether Senegal and Cameroon will reverse course and reopen their borders to poultry imports. As of 2010, however, there was little indication that either government intended to reopen their borders, even as the avian influenza threat had subsided. While this may be advantageous to intensive poultry producers, it is less clear that it is advantageous to African consumers.

After Senegal and Cameroon closed their borders, per capita chicken meat availability fell in both countries, whereas it increased in Ghana. By 2007, annual per capita poultry meat supply was only 1·77 kgs and 3·13 kgs in Cameroon and Senegal respectively, but had grown to 5·08 kgs in Ghana. While this drop corresponded to a reduction in the overall meat supply in Cameroon, Senegal's supply remained relatively stable. In both countries, however, news sources claim that meat prices increased considerably in the late 2000s. Only Ghana, which did not ban imports, saw a stable increase in its meat supply between 2002 and 2007 (FAO n.d.).

In other parts of the world, increased demand for animal proteins ‘has been largely met by the worldwide growth in intensive livestock production, particularly poultry’ (Speedy Reference Speedy2003: 4049S). In Latin America and Asia, intensive poultry production has enabled producers, particularly in Brazil and China, to provide relatively low-cost meat to an expanding consumer base (ibid.). Because imports stymied the development of intensive industries in West Africa, it is difficult to know whether they could have similarly increased meat consumption. However, there is good reason to doubt whether intensive producers in West Africa would have been able to achieve a poultry revolution. Beyond imports, producers face many difficulties in expanding intensive production – widespread disease, high feed prices, sub-par transportation facilities, etc. Overcoming these will require significant government investment and support. But numerous scholars and activists have argued that West African governments need to concentrate what resources they have on helping rural and transhumant households increase village poultry, small ruminant and cattle production. Improvements in these less intensive forms of production have the double benefit of creating pro-poor growth and increasing poor people's access to animal proteins (Delgado et al. Reference Delgado, Rosegrant, Steinfeld, Ehui and Courboi1999: 42; Gning Reference Gning2005). Given that the benefits and competitiveness of intensive livestock production in West Africa are debatable, intensive producers' success at influencing government policy in Senegal and Cameroon may ultimately be cause for concern.