ABSTRACT This article assesses the social construction of the Ghana Police Service to explain why the government of Ghana assigned pay increase to the personnel of the service in the initial stage of implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy. Through a diachronic case study design, the article undertakes a content analysis of budget states of Ghana from 2001 to 2016 and shows that despite the widespread negative societal perception of the police service, the GPS remains a positively constructed target population in the eyes of the state. The article argues that this state-driven positive social construction combined with the preponderant political power to make the police service an advantaged target group deserving of the salary increment under the SSPP. The theoretical implications of this dichotomous state-society social construction for the democratic policy design theory are further explored with a call l for a new research agenda.

中文翻译：

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谁的看法重要？加纳警察局的社会建设和单身脊柱薪酬政策的实施情况分析

摘要本文评估了加纳警察局的社会结构，以解释加纳政府为何在实施“单一脊柱薪酬政策”的初期就向该部门的人员分配加薪。通过历时性案例研究设计，本文对加纳2001年至2016年的预算州进行了内容分析，结果表明，尽管社会普遍对警察部门持负面态度，但GPS在该国眼中仍然是积极建设的目标人群。文章认为，这种由国家驱动的积极社会建设与优越的政治权力相结合，使警察部门成为SSPP下应得的加薪目标。