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The politics of anti-corruption reform in Africa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2009

Letitia Lawson
Letitia Lawson*
Affiliation:
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, USA
*
Email: lllawson@nps.edu
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Abstract

Previous research on anti-corruption reform in Africa falls into two camps. The first explores ‘best practices’ and policy approaches to controlling corruption, while the second focuses on the politics of anti-corruption ‘reform’, arguing that official anti-corruption campaigns aim to mollify donors while using corruption charges instrumentally to undermine rivals and shore up personal loyalty to the president, and thus have no chance of controlling corruption. This paper suggests that, while the neopatrimonial context is a very significant limiting factor in anti-corruption reform, limited progress is possible. Examining the motivations and effects, intended and unintended, of anti-corruption reforms in Kenya and Nigeria, it finds that while the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission has indeed been politically marginalised and largely ineffectual, the more autonomous and activist, but politically instrumentalised, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in Nigeria has had a measure of success. The analysis suggests that this is explained by the EFCC's independent prosecutorial powers and the institutionalisation strategies of its chairman.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 73 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

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