IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revape/v25y1998i76p221-240.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Misunderstanding African politics: corruption & the governance agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Morris Szeftel

Abstract

Political corruption ‐ the misuse of public office or public responsibility for private (personal or sectional) gain ‐ has been an important theme of the neo‐liberal policies of adjustment, conditionality and democratization in Africa. Having identified the state as ‘the problem’, and liberalization and democratization as ‘the solution’ to that problem, it was inevitable that efforts to eradicate and control the widespread corruption characterising post‐colonial politics would be given a high priority by ‘the donors’. From the outset, proponents of structural reform linked political corruption to authoritarianism as an explanation of developmental failure, thereby identifying the arguments for democratization and ‘good governance’ with those for liberalization. This paper explores the way in which corruption has been understood in this ‘governance’ agenda and the efforts that have been made to control it by improving institutional performance and policing ‐ greater transparency and accountability, more effective oversight and punishment ‐ and by building a political culture intolerant of corruption. In general, however, legal and administrative reform has produced disappointing results and corruption has flourished and even increased. Failure has compounded cynicism and weakened faith in democratic change. Such failures suggest: firstly, that the anti‐corruption strategies pursued by international donors and imposed on African debtors are inadequate because of weaknesses in their conception of the state; secondly, that the reforms introduced through liberalization (a weakening of the state, deregulation and privatization) create new conditions in which corruption can flourish; and, thirdly, that fundamental features of African politics will need to change before such anti‐corruption measures can hope to succeed.

Suggested Citation

  • Morris Szeftel, 1998. "Misunderstanding African politics: corruption & the governance agenda," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(76), pages 221-240.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:25:y:1998:i:76:p:221-240
    DOI: 10.1080/03056249808704311
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/03056249808704311
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03056249808704311?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Toeba Thato, 2018. "Corruption in Public Procurement in Lesotho," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 397-431, December.
    2. Ocheje Paul D., 2011. "When Law Fails: A Theory of Self-Enforcing Anti-Corruption Legislation in Africa," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 4(3), pages 238-280, September.
    3. Melia, Elvis, 2020. "African jobs in the digital era: Export options with a focus on online labour," IDOS Discussion Papers 3/2020, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    4. Vicente Chua Reyes Jr, 2009. "Systemic Corruption and the Programme on Basic Education in the Philippine Department of Education," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 25(4), pages 481-510, October.
    5. Aheli Chowdhury, 2019. "Anti-Corruption Movement: A Story of the Making of the Aam Admi Party and the Interplay of Political Representation in India," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 189-198.
    6. Michele Tantardini & Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor, 2015. "Organizational Social Capital and Anticorruption Policies: An Exploratory Analysis," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 599-609, December.
    7. Petricca, Kadia & Bekele, Asfaw & Berta, Whitney & Gibson, Jennifer & Pain, Clare, 2018. "Advancing methods for health priority setting practice through the contribution of systems theory: Lessons from a case study in Ethiopia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 198(C), pages 165-174.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revape:v:25:y:1998:i:76:p:221-240. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CREA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.