Can debt be used to combat political corruption in Africa?

Crime, Law and Social Change

Volumn 27, Issue 3-4, 1997, Pages 299-314

  Theobald, Robin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 21944439916     PISSN: 09254994     EISSN: 15730751     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1008284819112     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. For example, the series of International Anti-Corruption Conferences (IACC), the seventh of which was held in Beijing in October 1995; the "Ethics in Public Service" series, the fifth of which was held in Jerusalem in June 1995; the work of the G-7 Financial Action Task Force; and the activities of such bodies as Transparency International (see below), and Worldaware: the Centre for World Development Education, London.
2. See Internet Corruption Ranking which can be received via Internet (http://www.Uni-Goettingen.de/-uwvw/icr.htm);
3. also in TI Newsletter, 1996, September.
4. One might also add that with a population exceeding that of all other West African states, the volume of financial transactions and dealings with public bodies in Nigeria will be proportionately that much greater and, commensurately, the opportunities for illegal and/or corrupt exchanges.
5. These extracts are taken from an extremely penetrating and uncompromising discussion of the problem of corruption in Africa by Patrick McCauslan, "A New Deal for Africa", paper given at the Royal African Society/Institute of Commonwealth Studies Conference, "Corruption in Africa", Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, November 1994.
6. For early statements of this view see Guenther Roth, "Personal Rulership, Patrimonialism and Empire-building in the New States", World Politics, 1968 (20), 194-206,
7. and Aristide R. Zolberg, Creating Political Order: the Party-States of West Africa (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1966).
8. For a critique of this view see Robin Theobald, Corruption, Development and Underdevelopment, (London and Durham, North Carolina: Macmillan/Duke University Press, 1990), chs. 3 and 4.
9. For a measured analysis see Jennifer A. Widner, "States and Statelessness in Late Twentieth-century Africa", Daedalus, Summer 1995, (124:3), 129-153.
10. At the time of writing Widner identified Angola, Liberia, Somalia, Rwanda and the Sudan as states where the authority of government was under siege or had disintegrated completely into civil war. Chad, Burundi, eastern Zaire and Togo, Widner suggests, might be added to this list. See also I. William Zartman (ed), Collapsed States. The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (London: Lynne Rienner 1995).
11. See "Democratic Strings" and "Crossed Visions" in West Africa, 25 June - 1 July, 1990, pp. 1065 and 1077. The latter piece quotes the then British Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, insisting that potential recipients of Western aid must be countries "tending towards pluralism, public accountability, respect for the rule of law, human rights and market principles."