Corruption and the Postocolonial State: How the West Invented African Corruption

Abstract

There is corruption in Africa, no doubt; but then again, there is corruption everywhere. However, when it comes to Africa the corruption discourse appears to take a different tone with assertions like these. Corruption is a big problem. It permeates every section of society. It is a way of life. Everyone is corrupt. Then certain descriptive metaphors follow, most of them pathological: cancer, virus, cankerworm, parasite, epidemic, and so on. But why does corruption appear to be a particularly African problem in a way that it appears not to be, in other places? This paper examines the way in which the narrative on African corruption has been framed, and argues that the discourse on African corruption is a Western invention that emerged as a post-colonial construct. It is discourse that has distorted and ignored the true nature of the problem, which has made a solution even more elusive.