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Bureaucratic Corruption in Africa: The Futility of Cleanups

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 BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN AFRICA:
THE FUTILIn OF CLEANUPS
John Mukum Mbaku

Recent interest in the political dimension of economic growth has

had a significant impact on the study of the behavior of bureaucrats
and how their activities affect macroeconomic performance. Most of
the research has been devoted to the study ofbureaucratic compensa-
tion (Kimenyi 1987; Mbaku 1991a; Couch, Atkinson, and Shughart
1992) and bureaucratic corruption. Little attention, however, has been
given the problem of corruption cleanups.
An effective cleanup program can be designed and implemented,
but only if the researcher puts bureaucratic corruption in the right
context. Unless it is understood that bureaucratic corruption is oppor-
tunistic (rent-seeking) behavior and is rebated to the scope and extent
of government regulation of economic activities, cleanup programs
are unbikeby to succeed. This study examines bureaucratic corruption
and cleanup strategies in Africa and seeks to advance the public-
choice approach as the most effective and intellectually sastiI~4ng
framework for corruption cleanup.
In Africa, bureaucrats attempt to increase their level of compensa-
tion by lobbying lawmakers and politicians and by engaging in other
aetivites to influence the political system and maximize benefits accru-
ing to them. Many civil servants also illegally increase their compensa-
tion by providing services to interest groups that seek favors from the
government. Political coalitions seeking ways to subvert the existing
rules to redistribute national income and wealth in their favor can
achieve their objectives bybribing civil servants whose job is to enforce
state regulations and implement national development plans. If

Cato Journal, vol. 16, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 1996), Copyright C Gate Institute. All
tights reserved.
John Mukum Mbaku is Professor of Economics at Weber State University and President
of the African Educational Foundation, Inc. I-Ic thanks Ian Vasquez for helpful comments
on an earlier version of the article. Financial support from the Willard L. Eceles Foundation
is gratefully acknowledged.

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CATO JOURNAL

bureaucrats discover they can earn more income from providing ser-
vices to groups seeking state favors than from their regular (public)
jobs, they may pay more attention to the demands of such interest
groups than to the proper enforcement of state laws and regulations
and the effective implementation of national development plans. In
societies where civil service compensation levels are relatively bow, a
significant part of the public employee’s total compensation may be
derived from engagement in outside activities, resulting in a significant
increase in bureaucratic corruption (Mbaku 1991a).
The rules that regulate socio-politicab relations in a country have a
significant impact on the ability of civil servants to seek and secure
(either legally or illegally) outside income. In nondemocratic societies,
as has been shown by Mwangi Kimenyi (1987), bureaucrats are less
constrained in their employment of public resources to bobby legisla-
tors and influence those individuals with direct responsibility fordeter-
mining bevels of compensation for the public sector. In fact, in many
African countries, most civil servants are members of the politically
dominant group and have significant influence over the allocation of
resources. Under these conditions, civil servants behave like interest
groups whose primary objective is to put pressure on the political
system in an effort to redistribute wealth to themselves.
In countries with poorly constructed, inefficient, and non self-
enforcing constitutional rules, opportunistic behaviors (including rent
seeking) are usually quite pervasive. In such countries, the rules that
regulate socio-political interaction have failed to adequately constrain
the government. As a result, state intervention in private exchange is
equally pervasive. Excessive regulation of economic activities creates
many opportunities for rent seeking, including bureaucratic
corruption.
Corruption has been an important subject of analysis by social
scientists for many years. In the 1960s, however, two major events
rekindled interest in the study of corruption, especially in developing
countries. First, the development by Samuel Huntington (1968, 1990)
and others of theories of modernization and political development
renewed discussions on bureaucratic corruption and the role of laws
and institutions in economic growth and development (Leff 1964,
Huntington 1990, Myrdal 1990). Second, the economies and markets
of the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia were over-
whelmed by corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and incompetence.
Since the early 1960s, researchers have devoted significant effort to the
examination of bureaucratic corruption in the developing economies,
paying much attention to the effects of the behavior of civib servants
on economic growth and development (Heidenheimer, Johnston, and

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 BUREAUGRATIG CORRUPTION IN AFRIGA

LeVine 1990). Despite this emphasis on the study of corruption in

post-independence Africa, there has been insufficient attention paid
to the problem of corruption cleanup in Africa.

The Concept of Corruption

Corruption in developing countries is often believed to arise from
the clash or conflict between traditional values and the imported
norms that accompany modernization and socio-pobitical develop-
ment, Bureaucratic corruption is seen by some researchers, then, as
an unavoidable outcome of modernization and development (Abam
1989, Baybey 1966). David Baybey (1966: 720) argues that “corruption,
while being tied particularly to the act of bribery, is a general term
covering the misuse of authority as a result of considerations of per-
sonal gain, which need not be monetary.” Herbert Werlin (1973: 73)
defines political corruption as the “diversion of public resources to
nonpublic purposes,” In Africa many people see corruption as a practi-
cal problem involving the “outright theft, embezzlement of funds or
other appropriation of state property, nepotism and the granting of
favours to personal acquaintances, and the abuse of public authority
and position to exact payments and privileges” (Harsch 1993: 33).
Joseph Nye (1967: 419) argues that corruption involves “behavior
which deviates from the normal duties of a public robe because of
private-regarding (family, close clique), pecuniary or status gain; or
violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regard-
ing influence.”
Jacob van Klaveren believes that a corrupt bureaucrat regards his
office as a business from which he is able to extract extra-legal income.
As a result, the civil servant’s total compensation “does not depend
on an ethical evaluation of his usefulness for the common good but
precisely upon the market situation and his talents for finding the
point of maximal gain on the public’s demand curve” (Klaveren 1990:
26). As part of his definition of corruption, Nathaniel Leff (1964: 8)
includes “bribery to obtain foreign exchange, import, export, invest-
ment or production licenses, or to avoid paying taxes.” According
to Carl Friedrich (1990: 15), individuals are said to be engaging in
corruption when they are granted power by society to perform certain
public duties but, as a result of the expectation of a personal reward
or gain (be it monetary or otherwise), undertake actions that reduce
the welfare of society or damage the public interest.
Bureaucratic corruption provides civil servants with the opportunity
to raise their compensation above what the law prescribes. Through
the practice of corruption, private entrepreneurs are abbe to capture

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and maintain monopoby positions in the economy. Politicians, who

serve as wealth brokers, obtain the resources they need to purchase
security and continue to monopolize the supply of legislation. The
biggest loser from corruption is society as a whole. Corruption allows
inefficient producers to remain in business, encourages governments
to pursue perverse economic policies, and provides opportunities to
bureaucrats and politicians to enrich themselves through extorting
bribes from those seeking government favors. Thus, corruption distorts
economic incentives, discourages entrepreneurship, and slows eco-
nomic growth (Mbaku 1992, Gould 1980).
In examining bureaucratic corruption in Africa, it is important to
discuss the supply side, Unless entrepreneurs and groups seeking
government favors supply the bribes, then most bureaucratic corrup-
tion would be limited to nepotism, illegal levies, and the illegal appro-
priation of public resources. In African countries, payments from
entrepreneurs seeking state favors represent an important source of
extra-legal income for civil servants. A society’s laws and institutions
have a significant impact on the bevel of bureaucratic corruption.
State regulatory programs can place a significant burden on business
enterprises and entrepreneurship and encourage investors to seek
ways to minimize these state-imposed costs. Most intervention
schemes, of course, create rents that are usually competed for through
a political process. Paying bribes to civil servants has emerged as an
important method to compete for those rents. For profit-maximizing
enterprises faced with ruinous government regulations, bureaucratic
corruption can be viewed as a survival mechanism (Mbaku 1992,
Harsch 1993).
It is important to distinguish between political and bureaucratic
corruption. While the latter involves efforts by civil servants to enrich
themsebves through illegal means, the former is used by political
coalitions to capture the apparatus of state or maintain a monopoly
on power. Political corruption usually includes activities such as vote-
rigging, registration of unqualified, dead, or non-existent voters,
purchase and sale of votes, and the falsification of election results
(Goodman 1990).
David Osterfeld (1992: 204—18) has argued that in a heavily regu-
lated economy, one can find two distinct types ofcorruption: “expansive
corruption,” which involves activities that improve the competitiveness
and flexibility of the market; and “restrictive corruption,” which limits
opportunities for productive and socially beneficial exchange. This
batter type ofcorruption, Osterfebd (ibid.: 209—10) argues, is character-
ized by redistribution of income and wealth in favor of individuals or
groups. Most public-sector corruption falls in the restrictive category

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 BUREAUGRATIG CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

and involves illegal appropriation of public resources for private use

(e.g., outright embezzlement by a civil servant) or the illegal use of
an individual’s public position for his own personal enrichment. Public-
sector corruption hinders the proper functioning ofthe market system,
retards economic growth, and thus is restrictive corruption. As exam-
ples of expansive corrruption, Osterfeld (ibid.: 212—17) mentions the
bribing of judges, politicians and bureaucrats by members of the
private sector. The payment of bribes to the right officials, he argues,
can help mitigate the harmful effects of excessive government regula-
tion and improve economic participation.
Although certain types of corruption may have beneficial economic
and political effects, corruption can permit inefficient firms to remain
in business indefinitely. Contrary to Osterfeld’s (1992: 213) claim,
the firms offering the highest bribes are not necessarily the most
economically efficient ones but the ones that are efficient at rent
seeking. Indeed, in a study of the Yucatan, Margaret Goodman (1990:
642—43) found that corruption did not benefit efficient producers,
but instead protected incompentent entrepreneurs. The firms that
survived under institutionalized corruption were those that had
become efficient at rent seeking, not at properly and effectively servic-
ing their markets. The expertise that improved their ability to survive
was their knowledge of the political process, who to bribe, and how
to effectively manipulate the political system to their advantage. In
addition, Goodman found that corruption in the Yucatan did not
ensure new groups or entrepreneurs opportunities to enterthe market.
Instead, corruption allowed the old and more established groups to
totally dominate and monopolize markets.’
The primary emphasis in this paper is on the type of corruption
that involves the purchase of state favors from bureaucrats who have
been charged with the job of formulating and implementing national
development plans, enforcing state regulations, and protecting private
property rights. Thus, activities of interest include payment of bribes
to obtain import and export licenses, foreign exchange permits, and
investment and production licenses, To minimize costs imposed on
their enterprises by the state, owners ofcapital may bribe civil servants
and other members of the enforcement community in order to receive
favorable tax treatment. Civil servants are also abbe to extort bribes

‘For a thorough examination of challenges to the pro-corruption arguments, see Goodman

(1990) and Leff (1964). Despite the taxonomy for corruption prcMded by Osterfeld (1992),
corruption, regardless of the t~pe,is a serious problem for most developing countries and
should be minimized, The latter can be accomplished, as discussed in this aiticle, thro’ogh
proper institutional reforms.

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from individuals and groups seeking access to government-subsidized

goods and services. The resources expended by entrepreneurs on
bribes represent an illegal tax on economic activity and can be viewed
as an attenuation ofproperty rights. In many African countries, incum-
bents do not seem to be genuinely interested in effective cleanup
programs because corruption represents an important source of reve-
nue and a means through which incumbents channel resources to
supporters and to elites who use the threat of violence to extract rents
(Mbaku 1992, 1994).

What Causes Bureaucratic Corruption in Africa?

Much research has been done to determine the causes of bureau-
cratic corruption in Africa. According to David Apter (1963), African
civil servants may be obliged to share the proceeds of their public
offices with their kinfolk. The African extended family places signifi-
cant pressure on the civil servant, forcing him to engage in corrupt
and nepotic practices. Bureaucrats are believed to exploit their public
positions to generate benefits for themselves, their families, and their
ethnic or social cleavage. Thus, in studying corruption in Africa,
researchers have tended to place emphasis on the structural and
individual conditions that contribute to corrupt behavior. Investigators
have identified several structural factors that contribute to bureau-
cratic corruption in Africa, One such structural factor is the “soft
state” that is said to embody “a weak or diffuse sense of national
interest and the absence of a commitment to public service” (Gould
and Mukendi 1989: 434). Many researchers have argued that there
appears to be an absence of a commitment to public service among
citizens of many developing countries and that excessive levels of
bureaucratic corruption in these economies are related to the lack of
devotion to serving the public interest. In many African countries,
civil service employees view public service as an opportunity for self
enrichment. Pita Agbese (1992: 229—30) has observed that in post-
independence Nigeria, all political coalitions and groups have been
engaged in determined efforts to capture the apparatus of state in
order to use the state’s redistributive powers to amass wealth for
themselves. Soon after capturing the government, the incumbent
regime usually erects significant barriers to entry and monopolizes
the supply of legislation, thus making certain that other groups do
not participate in the allocation of resources. For locked-out groups,
participation in the economic systems must be obtained through pay-
ment of bribes to incumbent bureaucrats, all of whom are members
of the politically dominant group.

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 BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

Nigeria is not the only country in Africa in which the apparatus of

government has’become an instrument forthe enrichment of members
of the politically dominant group. South Africa, long regarded by many
scholars in the West as a bastion for free enterprise in Africa, has for
many years promoted laws that allowed the white minority to use the
redistributive powers of the state to enrich itself while sentencing the
black majority to perpetual poverty and deprivation (Hazbett 1988;
Mbaku 1991b, 1993; Williams 1989; Doxey 1961; Hutt 1964).
Throughout Africa, from Algeria to ZaIre, bureaucrats and politicians
promote perverse economic policies, which while impoverishing most
ofsociety, provide concentrated and significant benefits to the national
elites and interest groups.
Incompetence and inefficiency among civil servants have been given
as other institutional issues associated with bureaucratic corruption
in Africa. Sustainable economic and social development requires an
efficient and professional civil service. To effectively carry out national
development plans and promote entrepreneurship and innovation in
the economy, the government bureaucracy must be responsive to the
needs of the entrepreneurial class. Additionally, public goods and
services should be delivered efficiently. The implication is that the
nation’s civil service must be competent and possess a significant bevel
of professionalism. Hiring decisions should be based on merit and
qualification, and senior positions should be awarded only to candi-
dates who have distinguished themselves and possess the ability and
expertise to efficiently perform the duties assigned them. Civil service
positions should not be used as rewards for political support or
swapped for bribes, or used to meet obligations to one’s ethnic cleav-
age. Incompetent, unqualified, and unprofessional civil servants con-
tribute significantly to failures in development and force the country
to remain essentially underdeveloped.
Shortly after independence, many African countries adopted statism
as their development model. This approach to resource allocation
emphasized state control and eventually turned many African govern-
ments into major economic units. Today, African governments are
the primary investors, exporters, importers, and bankers. In addition,
the state also employs a significant proportion of the national labor
force and is quite involved in income redistribution. Through a series
of regulations and statutes, the state is abbe to extract wealth from
the poorly organized rural farm sector for use in subsidizing the
relatively well-organized and politically volatile urban sector. In many
African countries the beneficiaries of excessive state intervention in
private exchange have been public employees whose job it is to enforce
the laws. Control of an enormous amount of public resources by

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bureaucrats has allowed them to manipulate public pobicies to amass

wealth for themselves at the expense of the rest of society. In several
instances, bureaucrats have created artificial shortages in order to
extort bribes from prospective demanders. The enforcement of state
regulations and statutes in most African countries is poor, arbitrary,
capricious, and ineffective. As a consequence, individuals and groups
affected by the regulations are forced to engage in opportunism,
including the payment of bribes to civil servants. Several scholars
have cited the transformation of the post-independence African state
apparatus into an instrument for the enrichment of members of the
politically dominant group as a significant contributor to corruption
(Agbese 1992, Ihonvbere and Ekekwe 1988).
Pervasive and chronic poverty, extremely high bevels of material
deprivation, and severe inequalities in the distributionof resources
also have been advanced as major determinants of corruption in the
African countries (Leys 1965). Many regions of the world have made
significant advancements in economic and human development during
the past 40 years. Yet Africahas remained essentially poor and severely
deprived. Evidence shows that Africa is today the poorest region of
the world (UNDP 1990, 1995). The emergence of the African military,
in the post-independence period, as an important force in the alloca-
tion of resources has further distorted income distribution. In many
African countries, the armed forces receive a disproportionate share
of the public budget. It is argued by many researchers that these
post-independence developments have contributed significantly to
increased corruption, underdevelopment, and pervasive poverty and
deprivation (Mbaku 1994).
Some scholars believe that corruption in Africa and other developing
regions arises from the existence of defective cultural norms and
behaviors (Jabbra 1976). Other researchers believe that corruption in
Africa is related to the clash between traditional and foreign norms
that accompany modernization and industrial development. As such,
corruption is seen as an unavoidable consequence of economic mod-
ernization and political development (Alam 1989, Bayley 1966).
In the majority of developing societies, individual rights are often
subordinate to the rights of the group or social cleavage. As a result,
loyalty to the ethnic group is considered more important than individ-
ual rights or personal accountability. In Africa, these particularistic
attachments are quite strong and have been cited as important deter-
minants of bureaucratic corruption. Individuals who become success-
ful in the public sector or the exchange economy are expected to
share the benefits with their extended family and their ethnic cleavage.
Thus, a civil servant may engage in corrupt activities in an effort to

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 BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

meet personal obligations to members of his family or ethnic group

(Abam 1989, Gould and Mukendi 1989).
In contrast, public choice theory contends that bureaucratic corrup-
tion is rebated primarily to government control and regulation of
economic activities. Once constitutional rules have been selected and
adopted, and a government established, political coalitions will try to
use government to redistribute income and wealth in their favor.
Unless the adopted rules effectively constrain the ability of the govern-
ment to supply special-interest legislation, rent seeking will become
pervasive as groups seek ways to enrich themselves at the expense of
the rest of society. At the same time, civil servants will be abbe to
extort bribes from entrepreneurs seeking ways to minimize the burden
of state regulations on their enterprises and attempting to enter eco-
nomic sectors closed by state intervention in markets.
Most Africans live in societies with weak, inefficient, and poorly
designed constitutional rules, which provide the government with
almost unlimited power to intervene in private exchange. In such
economies, resource allocation is totally politicized and the civil service
has replaced the market as the principal instrument for the allocation
of resources. Civil servants are aware that lucrative monopoly rights
created by government regulatory activities provide their owners with
enormous monopoly profits. As a result, bureaucrats try to capture
rents by extorting bribes from entrepreneurs who request them.
Where government regulation imposes significant costs on a business,
the entrepreneur can minimize those costs by paying bribes to mem-
bers of the enforcement community. The bribe is expected to either
exempt the business from the laws or to have the individual’s enterprise
taxed at a bower rate. If these restrictions on economic activity are
eliminated, bureaucrats would be unable to extort bribes from entre-
preneurs. Thus, bureaucratic corruption is primarily rent-seeking
behavior, which is• directly rebated to the bevel and extent of govern-
ment activity in the economy (Mbaku 1992).

Traditional Strategies for Corruption Cleanup

The literature on corruption cleanup identifies four types of strate-
gies to minimize or eliminate corruption. They include societal, legal,
market, and political strategies (Gillespie and Okruhbik 1991: 80).
Societal strategies place emphasis on the determination of a common
standard of morality against which corrupt behavior can be measured.
Vigilance by members of society and education to make it relatively
costly for individuals to engage in corruption are also emphasized
(Dobeb 1978, Etzioni-Halevy 1979, McMublan 1961). It is believed

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CATO JOURNAL

that bureaucratic behavior can be constrained effectively by the law;

special commissions of inquiry or special prosecutors can be chosen
to investigate individuals and groups accused of corruption; and, where
the evidence gathered points to corruption, the judiciary system can
judge and punish the guilty according to national laws (Padhy 1986,
Ali 1985). Market-related strategies for the cleanup of corruption are
based on the belief that there is a relation between the structure of
the market and the incidence of corruption. The prescribed remedy
is less government regulation and greater reliance on markets for
the allocation of resources. Such an approach, however, appears to
emphasize the manipulation of outcomes within existing rules instead
of proper reform of the rules, The fault is not with the market, but
with the rules that regulate the market. Since rules define market
outcomes, greater reliance on markets for the allocation of resources
without reforming existing rules will have little effect on outcomes,
including bureaucratic corruption. Unless there is effective reform of
the socio-political rules within which the market functions, incentives
for opportunism will remain and corruption will continue unabated
(Baybey 1966, Macrae 1982, Rose-Ackerman 1978, Tibman 1968),
Political strategies for corruption cleanup emphasize the decentral-
ization of the public sector. It is argued that corruption arises from
the concentration of power in the hands of a few politicians and
bureaucrats, and that a process which provides citizens with greater
access to public institutions will significantly minimize opportunities
for corruption within the country. Under this approach, an effective
cleanup program is expected to emphasize political deregulation and
the subsequent expansion of opportunities for citizens to participate
in governance. Social scientists and pobicymakers who favor adminis-
trative reform as away to minimize the incidence ofcorruption support
increasing the legal compensation of bureaucrats in order to reduce
the chances that civil servants will seek extra-legal income (Gillespie
and Okruhbik 1991; Dobeb 1978; Nas, Price, and Weber 1986;
Wade 1982).
The impetus to clean up corruption can be provided primarily by
political exigency rather than by genuine interest in the efficient
functioning of the nation’s political and economic institutions. In
several countries, including those in Africa, postcoup commissions of
inquiry are usually designed to discredit the ousted government and
help incoming elites gain recognition and legitimacy. Incumbents also
use cleanup programs to help them stay in power and continue to
monopolize the supply of legislation and the allocation of resources.
An incumbent leader faced with deteriorating economic and social
conditions and a challenge from opposition parties or groups may

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 BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

initiate a campaign to clean up corruption within his administration

in an effort to direct attention away from existing problems and the
government’s inability or unwillingness to provide effective solutions
for those problems. Whether or not corruption cleanups are used for
political exigency and how often is determined by several factors—
including “the personal values of the head of state, challenges from
a counterelite, and popular discontent arising from socioeconomic
conditions” within the country (Gillespie and Okruhlik 1991: 82).
In several African countries, politicians regularly use cleanup cam-
paigns to help them stay in power. Cleanup programs can be used to
discredit members of a previous regime, to destroy the reputations
of leaders ofthe opposition, and to improve support among the popula-
tion for the incumbent regime. Even if a government seriously and
honestly wishes to clean up corruption, existing approaches suffer
from at beast one obstacle: their success depends on the effectiveness
of the counteracting agencies. In Africa cleanup programs depend
primarily on the police, the national judiciary, and the press, and
assume that those agencies are appropriately constrained by the law
and are free of corruption. In addition to the fact that few African
countries have a press that is independent and free of government
manipulation, the police and nationaljudiciary systems ofmost African
countries are pervaded by very high bevels of con’uption. As a result,
a cleanup program backed by those agencies is unlikely to be effective.
Present cleanup programs are based on the manipulation of behaviors
within what are inefficient rules and as a result, are unlikely to be
effective. The first step in an effective cleanup program is to select
appropriate new rules, making sure that the new social contract is
capable of generating the outcomes desired by society.

The Public-Choice Approach to Corruption

Cleanup: The Importance of Rules
Geoffrey Brennan and James Buchanan (1985) argue that the rules
that regulate the activities of individuals within a society matter and
are a major determinant of how individuals and organizations behave.
The behavior of bureaucrats and the entrepreneurs who bribe them
can be analyzed effectively only within the context of existing rules.
Thus, without a clear understanding ofa country’s laws and institutions,
any effort to analyze or understand corruption within that society
would be futile. Any cleanup program that is designed without taking
into consideration the impact of existing rules on the behavior of
individuals (including bureaucrats, entrepreneurs, voters, and politi-
cians) within the society would be ineffective. Rules define how mdi-

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CATO JOURNAL.

viduabs can interact with each other, provide a means for the settlement
of conflict, and generally place constraints on individual behavior, as
well as that of the groupand collectivity (Brennan and Buchanan 1985).
Effective rules allow individuals to pursue their private ends in
such a way that they do not infringe on the ability of others to do the
same. The rules that regulate socio-political interaction can be explicit
(e.g., a written constitution) or based on custom and tradition. Given
an existing set of rules, corruption can be viewed as opportunistic
behavior on the part of individuals or groups. In this vein, corruption
can be seen as a problem of constitutional maintenance that can be
handled appropriately only through rules reform.
In an effort to explain the relevance of rules, Brennan and Buchanan
(1985: 13) return to the “tragedy of the commons,” an illustration
that is used quite often in economics. If, for example, the rules of a
society require that agricultural land be owned communally, and farm-
ers are assumed to be utility maximizers in the traditional sense, then
overgrazing will be the outcome. The overgrazing is not a result of
market failure, as is often assumed, but a problem associated with
the nature of the rules that regulate socio-political relationships in
this society, including the behavior of farmers. In other words, given
the existing rules, utility maximization will bead to overgrazing. As is
the case in many African societies, policing is usually the method
employed to minimize the problem of overgrazing. Unfortunately, in
the absence of privatization and appropriate institutions to protect
and enforce property rights, efforts to force certain outcomes within
the existing set of rules are rarely successful.
Present cleanup programs in Africa suffer from several problems.
First, they are being carried out within inefficient and nonviable rules.
Second, corruption cleanup ipvobves efforts to manipulate outcomes
within existing rules through policing. Third, the counteracting agen-
cies charged with policing and enforcement of the laws and the bureau-
crats who work in those agencies are not properly constrained by the
laws. Finally, many bureaucrats are themselves corrupt and cannot
be counted on to provide the leadership needed to run effective
cleanup programs. Thus, effective corruption cleanup needs to begin
with rules reform to make certain that the outcomes generated within
the rules are those desired by society.
Efforts to clean up corruption would be futile if the rules that
regulate socio-pobitical relations provide an incentive system that
makes opportunism highly lucrative. If, as a result of the adopted
rules, rent-seeking activities, as opposed to genuine entrepreneurship,
are highly rewarding, entrepreneurs are likely to devote most of their
time and effort to rent seeking. In such a case, using the police force

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 BUREAUCRATIC CoRRUPTIoN IN AFRICA

to prevent individuals from taking advantage of lucrative rent-seeking

opportunities is unlikely to be effective, especialby if members of the
police are corrupt and inefficient. Again, the fundamental problem is
the absence of a rube of law, not the corrupt outcomes. Thus, appro-
priate procedures for effective control ofrent seeking and other oppor-
tunistic behaviors, including bureaucratic corruption, is to reform the
rules of the game and change the incentive system.
Dealing with corruption and other opportunistic behaviors, accord-
ing to public choice theory, is a problem of constitutional or rules
maintenance; Besides corruption, opportunistic behavior includes
shirking, adverse selection, moral hazard, and free riding (Ostrom,
Schroeder, and Wynne 1993: 43—72). Even if individuals select an
efficient set of rules (i.e., rules that generate mutual gains for all
parties), opportunistic behavior (including corruption) would still be
a problem for the post-constitutional society. Making certain that
opportunism is minimized in the post-contractual society requires an
efficient and effective enforcement system to ensure cooperation and
compliance. Unfortunately, third-party enforcement of constitutional
rules is usually unreliable, inefficient, and not particularly viable. Some
scholars have suggested that the national judiciary and police be
allowed to serve as counteracting agencies to enforce compliance and
minimize opportunism. Those institutions, however, are themselves
subject to interest-group pressure. In addition, in most African coun-
tries, those institutions are not properly constrained by the law and
are pervaded by high bevels of corruption. Consequently, the national
judiciary and police are not appropriate instruments for corruption
cleanup or enforcement of constitutional rules (Lowenberg 1992,
Lowenberg and Yu 1992, Wagner and Gwartney 1988).
The problem of rules maintenance has been examined by several
researchers. Emerging from these studies is a theory of constitutional
maintenance whose main objective is to find ways to minimize oppor-
tunism in the post-constitutional society (Anderson and Hill 1986,
Buchanan and Faith 1987, Aranson 1988, Niskanen 1990). It is gener-
ally believed that making the constitution or the set of rules selected
self-enforcing will eliminate most opportunities for rent seeking and
other opportunistic behavior. A constitution can be made self-enforc-
ing by endowing it with principles andprocedural rules that introduce,
maintain, and enhance pobmtical and economic competition in the post-
constitutional society. In other words, during constitutional negotia-
tions, the rules are designed to make both political and economic
markets competitive and accessible to all members of society. An
important characteristic of a self-enforcing set of rules is its ability to
constrain government and limit the exercise of government agency.

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If the state’s ability to intervene in private exchange is constitutionally

restrained, political coalitions will find it very difficult to engage in
inefficient re&stributions. Constitutionally constraining the ability of
the government to engage in ex-post resource redistributions will
significantly limit redistributions of income induced by majority vote
and rent seeking. Once the constitution limits the ability of the state
to redistribute income and wealth, interest groups are unlikely to
invest in rent seeking, because such investments would either yield
r&ativeby meager returns or be unprofitable.
In addition to extorting bribes from individuals and groups seeking
government favors, bureaucratic corruption includes the illegal appro-
priation ofpublic resources by civil servants, nepotism, illegal taxation,
and other illegal activities designed to increase the compensation of
bureaucrats above the legal limit. Not all of these activities, however,
qualmI~’as rent seeking. Paying of bribes by an entrepreneur to a civil
servant in an effort to lower taxes is a form of bureaucratic corruption
and is also rent-seeking behavior. Although the illegal appropriation
of state resources by a bureancrat for his personal use is bureaucratic
corruption, it is not rent seeking. If, however, civil servants lobby
legislators in an effort to secure additional privileges for themselves,
this behavior is rent seeking, but is not generally considered a form
of bureaucratic corruption. To effectively minimize all the above forms
of behavior, there must be real reform of existing rules.

Rules and Corruption Cleanup in Africa

Most African countries today operate under constitutional rules
that were adopted at independence. Despite many attempts at post-
independence rules reform, most African countries have not suc-
ceeded in designing appropriate laws and institutions, especially those
that would guarantee the types of outcomes desired by members of
society. Instead, what pass as constitutions in many African countries
are basically adaptations of European constitutional models that have
allowed politically dominant groups to continue to maintain a monop-
oly on power.
The institutions brought to the African colonies by the Europeans
were primarily “structures of exploitation, despotism, and degrada-
tion” (Fatton 1990: 457). As argued by Michael Crowder (1987:
11—12), “the colonial state was conceived in violence rather than by
negotiation.” Thus, the rules established to regulate socio-political
relations in the African colonies were not the outcome of negotiations
among representatives ofrelevant population groups in those societies.
Instead, those rules were imposed by Europeans and designed to
satisf~,their desired outcomes.

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 BUREAUCRATIC CORRUPTION IN AFRICA

When it became evident that the colonies would be granted inde-

pendence, the colonialists quickly developed a reform program that
was unable to fully address fundamental issues rebated to the effective
participation ofthe indigenous peoples in post-independence develop-
ment. Robert F’atton (1990: 457) states that these last-minute reform
efforts failed to allow for “fundamental transformation in the eco-
nomic, cultural, or bureaucratic domains.” Thus, the Europeans left
behind rules and institutions that were weak and potentially unstable.
Most of the constitutional rules that African countries adopted
at independence were developed abroad with the interests of the
indigenous peoples represented by urban elites, most of whom had
been educated in Europe and had accepted Western political norms
and beliefs. In addition to the fact that these urban elites were not
well informed on conditions in the rural sectors of their countries,
they usually had objectives and interests that were significantly differ-
ent from those of their peasant countrymen. Since the design of rules
often excluded a significant part of national political opinion, the
documents adopted were not efficientY
Many African countries later abandoned the rules that they had
adopted at independence and undertook constitutional reforms in an
effort to design more efficient and appropriate rules. Unfortunately,
constitutional discourse was still limited to a few urban elites with a
significant part of national political opinion excluded from participa-
tion. In some countries, governance was by military decree with the
constitution suspended. In fact, several African countries (including
Ghana, ZaIre, Nigeria, Libya, and Somalia) have been ruled by military
elites during most of their existence as sovereign nations.
In addition to the fact that constitutional discourse was dominated
by urban elites, the process did not seriously consider the aspirations,
desires, and needs of the rural populations, and the people were not
enfranchised and provided the facilities to participate effectively in
the selection of rules. In South Africa (until 1994), participation in
rules selection was limited to whites (Cowen 1961). The constitutional
rules produced by post-independence efforts produced Leviathan
states, whose redistributive powers were used by political coalitions
to amass wealth for themselves while impoverishing the rest of the

‘See, for example, Cowen (1961) for a discussion of how the majority black population was
excluded from the development of the first constitution of the Urnon of South Africa. For
a discussion of the first constitution of’ thc Republic of Camomon ~the former Fmnch
Cameroons), see Levine (1964). Note that in addition to the Pact that the Republic of
Cameroon’s first constitution was practically a copy of tile constitution of the French Fifth
Republic, the UPC party, the largest indigenous political party iu the colony, was ehminated
from participation in the design of constitutional rules.

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people. Many Africans today live under rules that were not unani-
mousby agreed upon by the relevant population groups within each
country or by their representatives. To ensure that the outcome is an
efficient set of rules, agreement must be unanimous and must be
achieved voluntarily.
Since post-independence attempts at rube reform have failed to
produce more efficient constitutions, the last several years have wit-
nessed a tremendous increase in bevels of bureaucratic corruption
in Africa.

Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to reexamine corruption cleanup
strategies in Africa and seek to show why they have been ineffective.
African countries, like many developing countries, have tried several
strategies in an effort to minimize bevels of bureaucratic corruption.
These include societal, legal, market, and political strategies. All those
approaches to corruption cleanup represent the manipulation of out-
comes within a given set of rules and presuppose the existence of
efficient counteracting institutions. The evidence shows, however,
that most judiciary systems and police forces in the African
countries are not properly constrained by the law and that most civil
servants (includingjudges and police officers) are themselves corrupt.
As a result, most cleanup programs in Africa have been unsuc-
cessful.
Bureaucratic corruption is an outcome generated within a given
set of rules. An effective normative evaluation of such an outcome
can only be undertaken after a thorough understanding of the rules
that generate the outcome. Thus, to understand why people engage
in corruption requires an examination of the rules that regulate the
socio-political behavior of individuals. Since these rules determine
how individuals behave and relate to each other, they also determine
the outcomes to be generated in the post-contractual society. Thus,
effective corruption cleanup should not involve efforts to manipulate
outcomes within rules. Instead, an effective approach should involve
reform of existing rules and the subsequent selection and adoption
of new rules that can generate the outcomes desired by society. Since
the rules determine the incentive system that will prevail in the post-
contractual society, society can effectively impose the outcomes it
wants through rules design. For example, the problem of overgrazing
of agricultural lands can be minimized by establishing private property
rights in land during rules selection. Usually, the establishment of
political rules and a political order precede the establishment of an

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economic order. The rules of political order include the “definition

of the rights of persons, [and] can be legitimately derived only from
the agreement among individuals as members of the polity” (Brennan
and Buchanan 1985: 26). The rights of persons are not defined by
the goverument. Instead, individuals or members of society form
governments to protect and guarantee their rights as defined and
agreed upon in the social or constitutional contract. Any attempt by
the goverument to modify or abrogate those rights invariably violates
the basic rules. It is important to note that problems of control in the
post-constitutional society do exist. In establishing the polity, the
government is granted the power to monopolize legitimate force.
Once established, government may try to exceed the limits of the
authority delegated it by the people—and if it does, it may render
itself illegitimate.
Gary Becker (1994: 18) remarked that “corruption is common when-
ever big government infiltrates all facets of economic life, never mind
the political and business systems.” If the country’s rules make the
political system the primary determinant of firm profitability, then
entrepreneurs are likely to devote most of their resources, including
their time, to rent seeking. For example, if state subsidies, discretionary
tax relief, and otherforms ofregulations—instead ofmanagerial exper-
tise, business acumen, and competition—become the primary deter-
minants of the profitability of firms, rent seeking, including bureau-
cratic corruption, would become pervasive. Entrepreneurs in such an
economy will devote a significant portion of their activities to lobbying
and bribing politicians and civil servants in an effort to maximize
profit levels.
Given the incentive system provided by existing rules, legal strate-
gies and other forms ofcorruption cleanups are unlikely to be effective.
In addition to the fact that manipulating outcomes within the rules
is not an effective way to secure the outcomes desired by society,
these strategies can only function effectively if the counteracting agen-
cies and those who manage them are properly constrained by a rube
of law and are free of corruption. Many of the police officers and
judges who are called upon to cleanup corruption are themselves
beneficiaries ofthe corrupt system of resource allocation. It is unlikely
that those individuals will perform their jobs effectively. An effective
corruption cleanup strategy must fundamentally weaken the link
between the government and the economy. That is, the relationship
between firm profitability and the state must be severed, The most
effective way to achieve that objective, and thus guarantee the out-
comes desired by society, is rules reform.

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