Majoritarian Democracy and the LGBT Conundrum in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana’s return to democracy in 1993 halted its search for representative governance. The 1992 constitution promised a governance system that would guarantee the rule of law and human rights while safeguarding the rights of minorities from majoritarian excesses. While the democratic dividend on human rights is unfolding for the majority, they are yet to materialise for citizens who identify as LGBT+. Adopting the theoretical frame of Habermas and Foucault, the chapter unpacks some factors underpinning LGBT+ rights discourses in Ghana. It argues that majoritarianism is a regulatory technology of LGBT+ rights. It concludes that through the matrices of power/domination emanating largely from the practices of majoritarianism, some minoritised groups are being denied full participation in the democratic sphere based on their sexuality.