The political economy of sycophancy

By Isaac FRIMPONG (PhD)

A young graduate enters the labour market expecting that years of education, discipline, and sacrifice will translate into opportunity. Instead, he watches a less qualified colleague advance more quickly, not through superior performance, but through a different skill: the ability to consistently praise influential figures.

Within a short time, that colleague gains visibility, contracts, networks, and access to spaces that remain closed to others with stronger credentials. In many workplaces, political environments, religious institutions, and parts of the informal economy in Ghana, such outcomes are no longer unusual.

This experience is not limited to graduates. Many young people leave school early and enter an already congested informal economy where income is unreliable, and survival is fragile. Across both formal and informal settings, advancement increasingly appears shaped not only by competence and effort, but also by relationships, alignment, and proximity to those who control resources.

This article examines sycophancy as a social and economic practice. In this context, it refers to deliberate praise, calculated loyalty, and strategic flattery directed at influential individuals in exchange for favour, protection, or advancement. In Ghana today, sycophancy is no longer simply a social irritation. For many, it has become both a survival mechanism and a pathway to livelihood.

The central question is how such a practice becomes economically rational. The argument advanced here is that sycophancy is not only a moral issue. It is also a structural response to economic pressure, institutional weakness, demographic strain, and unequal access to opportunity in a system where closeness to power can sometimes outweigh competence.

Sycophancy as a Survival Mechanism

In contexts where institutions are weak and competence is not consistently rewarded, individuals begin to reassess what determines advancement. Skills, qualifications, and effort alone appear insufficient. Increasingly, outcomes are shaped by access to those who hold influence.

Under such conditions, sycophancy emerges as a response to uncertainty. Individuals use praise to avoid exclusion, secure favour, or improve their chances of stability. When employment is scarce and access to resources is controlled by a limited number of gatekeepers, flattery becomes less of a social habit and more of a practical tool for survival.

With repetition, this behaviour becomes structured. Occasional praise evolves into sustained loyalty directed at those who control jobs, contracts, appointments, and visibility. What begins as informal interaction gradually becomes a transactional exchange. Over time, survival-based behaviour hardens into a livelihood pattern in which social approval is converted into economic participation.

Economic Pressure, Education, and the Struggle for Advancement

Ghana has recorded progress in education, democracy, technology, and urban development. However, economic expansion has not consistently matched rising social demand. Population growth continues to place pressure on infrastructure, public services, housing, transport systems, and employment creation.

This raises broader questions about demographic change and development planning; a concern reflected in the work of Letecia Appiah on transforming population growth into productive human capital through deliberate policy direction.

At the same time, the cost of living continues to rise. Rent advances, school fees, transport costs, healthcare payments, and startup capital often require substantial upfront resources before income stability is achieved. For many households, economic life is defined by continuous adjustment to financial pressure.

Each year, thousands of young people complete school expecting education to lead to employment and stability. Yet employment remains limited relative to demand. Many graduates enter the labour market only to encounter a mismatch between expectations and available opportunities.

The challenge extends further. Across both formal and informal sectors, a widening gap persists between preparation and actual opportunity. In this context, those who control access to jobs, contracts, scholarships, and institutional appointments acquire significant influence. Around these centres of power, patterns of praise emerge. These are not always expressions of admiration, but responses shaped by scarcity and dependence.

When Merit Loses Its Institutional Weight

In many workplaces and public institutions, advancement does not consistently follow competence. Individuals with limited technical capacity often progress faster than highly capable colleagues due to their ability to maintain favourable relationships with influential actors.

The deeper concern lies in what this signal collectively. When outcomes appear disconnected from effort and skill, the belief that performance alone determines advancement weakens. Over time, professional progression begins to look less like a reward for merit and more like the result of alignment with those who control institutional pathways.

As this perception spreads, behaviour changes within organisations. Some capable individuals withdraw from active participation. Others exit institutions entirely in search of systems they perceive as more predictable. Internal debate weakens, and informal approval begins to carry greater weight than formal evaluation.

At the institutional level, organisational culture shifts. Competence and accountability lose centrality, while informal relationships gain influence in decision-making. Formal rules remain in place but lose practical authority. This reflects Goran Hyden’s concept of the “economy of affection,” were informal ties and personal networks shape outcomes alongside or above formal institutional systems.

Leadership Incentives and Institutional Reinforcement

An important question is whether this pattern is reinforced by those who benefit from it. In many cases, the answer is affirmative.

Some political leaders, corporate executives, religious figures, and public personalities reward loyalty more consistently than competence. In such environments, disagreement is often interpreted as disloyalty, while praise becomes the safest route to visibility and advancement.

Over time, institutions shift from rule-based systems to personality-centred structures. Critical feedback declines, mediocrity is protected, and public confidence in fairness weakens. Citizens begin to associate justice not with rules, but with relationships. Where this pattern persists, institutional resilience declines and dependence on individual figures increases.

Conclusion

No society develops sustainably under such conditions. A functioning democracy requires institutions where merit carries greater weight than personal loyalty and where citizens can express dissent without fear of exclusion.

In Ghana today, sycophancy often begins as a response to economic pressure. However, when institutions repeatedly reward proximity over competence, it evolves into a livelihood system. At that point, it reshapes incentives, weakens accountability, and reinforces dependency.

Sycophancy should therefore not be reduced to individual morality alone. It is also a structural outcome of economic insecurity, institutional fragility, demographic pressure, and unequal access to opportunity.

Even in stronger systems, it may exist. However, where institutions are effective and opportunity is broadly distributed, it rarely becomes economically dominant or socially visible at scale. People are less likely to worship power when survival does not depend on closeness to it. No nation can build lasting progress when applause becomes more profitable than honesty.

Isaac is the Host, The MINGOP Initiative Podcast (YouTube)  andLecturer, University of Gold Coast
[email protected]

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