Political Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa

 Implications and Anti-Corruption Mechanisms
03 September, 2019
Authors

Published by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Political Corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications and Anti-Corruption Mechanisms by Mustapha Khouas deals with the characteristics of political corruption in Sub-Saharan Africa. Khouas documents the sources, manifestations, classification and interpretations of corruption and analyzes the phenomenon between 1990 and 2015 as a period where major transitions occurred in African political systems. This is one of the most important periods in which corruption has made a priority by the African continent's elites and intellectuals. These years have also witnessed a major African political, economic and social movements.

Khouas first presents the definitions of political corruption and various concepts and approaches involved as well as various methods of measuring corruption. He provides a detailed history of corruption with reference to international civilizations and the different degrees to which the phenomenon has affected societies over time and the interest paid to it. He also looks at the various manifestations of corruption and the different indicators used to work out the different determinants of a corrupt system. Khouas discusses the different measurement methods and indicators adopted by international organizations that periodically issue reports on the corruption ranking of countries, and explanatory approaches used to understand the occurrence of political corruption while noting their shortcomings to offer a critique of these interpretive theories.

Khouas investigates the sources that produce corruption, beginning with the historical and political roots on which corruption is based, from Western colonialism and its effects to authoritarian regimes, and how these systems helped transform corruption. To a social phenomenon, then bureaucracy and its support the foundations of corruption in the region. In his view, the integration of colonialism into post-colonialism was not arbitrary; the independent State of Sub-Saharan Africa maintained its institutional and legal structure itself, and independence to the community did not return the full initiative on state-building.


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