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Geographies of Sub-Saharan African Corruption

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Global Corruption from a Geographic Perspective

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Abstract

This chapter addresses corruption in sub-Saharan Africa. It emphasizes that corruption there is the worst in the world, notably in resource-rich kleptocracies. It summarizes the African context in light of the colonial legacy, patrimonialism and clientelism, and the grievous impacts of corrupt regimes. The spatial analysis examines perceptions of corruption, bribery rates, maps the corruption perception index and the World Bank control of corruption scores, and offers correlations. Next, it turns to case studies of Nigeria and Angola, emphasizing the resource curse, as well as South Africa. The conclusion reiterates the severity of African corruption in light of the absence of democracy and ineffective anti-corruption campaigns.

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Warf, B. (2019). Geographies of Sub-Saharan African Corruption. In: Global Corruption from a Geographic Perspective. GeoJournal Library, vol 125. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03478-8_5

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