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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Roots of African Corruption |
Author: | Ellis, Stephen |
Year: | 2006 |
Periodical: | Current History (ISSN 0011-3530) |
Volume: | 105 |
Issue: | 691 |
Period: | May |
Pages: | 203-208 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Africa |
Subjects: | corruption Economics and Trade Law, Human Rights and Violence Politics and Government |
Abstract: | Corruption is notoriously hard to measure or even to define, and therefore it is impossible to say for certain whether corruption in Africa is increasing or whether it is worse than in other places. What can be said is that it has become astonishingly brazen in recent years, with senior officials and even heads of State quite openly flouting their own countries' laws and a range of international diplomatic and legal conventions. Evidence suggests that outrageously corrupt practices have become routine at the very heart of government in some of the continent's most important countries. Corruption has become a way of life, a mode of business and politics. To understand the political economy of corruption, it needs to be situated in a specific historical context. Corruption has deep roots and in Africa's case, the matters to be considered include a history of power organized on a basis rather different from that in Europe or North America. A moment in Africa's history that is particularly relevant for this discussion was the imposition in colonial times of territorial, bureaucratically governed States that aspired to establish the rule of law. [ASC Leiden abstract] |