Cocoa, self-exhaustion and social, economic, and environmental recomposition in Ghana

This paper deals with a specific case in the contemporary crisis of globalization. It examines the way in which rules, roles, and conventions governing cocoa production in Ghana have evolved over time. Using a theoretical approach to global exchange rooted in the economy of conventions, economic anthropology, and pragmatism-inspired economic sociology, the paper views exchange as a form of social cooperation that requires rules and conventions to make it possible. We show that the specific arrangements that have evolved in the cocoa industry in Ghana appear today to be self-undermining. As older strategies exhaust themselves, neither incumbent practices nor any feature of contending alternative strategies for organizing global cocoa exchange represent an obvious ‘most efficient' option for producers. The market is not going to decide how Ghana manages the reality of its exhausted cocoa industry. Only extra-economic deliberation and struggle over lines of specialization and cooperation in exchange will.