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A moral economy of corruption in Africa?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1999

J. P. Olivier de Sardan
J. P. Olivier de Sardan
Affiliation:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS–CNRS), Marseille
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Abstract

As far as corruption in Africa is both conspicuous and generalised, it has to be studied from the viewpoint of the participants. This article starts with six general theses on corruption in Africa, which place it within a broader ‘corruption complex’, and emphasise its routine nature, the stigmatisation of corruption despite the absence of effective sanctions, its apparent irreversibility, the absence of correlation with regime types and its legitimacy to its perpetrators. Corruption is then shown to be socially embedded in ‘logics’ of negotiation, gift-giving, solidarity, predatory authority and redistributive accumulation. Any anti-corruption policy must face up to these realities.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 25 - 52
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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