1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910282242003321

Autore

Koechlin Lucy

Titolo

Corruption as an empty signifier [[electronic resource] ] : politics and political order in Africa / / by Lucy Koechlin

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Leiden ; ; Boston, : Brill, 2013

ISBN

90-04-25298-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (297 p.)

Collana

Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies ; ; v. 10

Disciplina

364.1323096

Soggetti

Political corruption - Africa

Democratization - Africa

Africa Politics and government 1960-

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Corruption, politics, and Africa -- 1. The academic discourse: political order and corruption in Africa -- 2. Sketching out an emancipatory discourse: corruption, political spaces and social imaginaries -- Interlude: a topography of corruption in Tanzania -- 3. Democratic spaces in the making? Professional associations and corruption in 2003 -- 4. Closures of democratic spaces? Professional associations and corruption in 2010 -- Conclusions: Corruption, politics, and political order.

Sommario/riassunto

Corruption as an Empty Signifier critically explores the ways in which corruption in Africa has been equated with African politics and political order, and offers a novel approach to understanding corruption as a potentially emancipatory discourse of political transformation. Conventionally, both academic literature as well as development policies depict corruption as the lynchpin of politics in Africa, locking African societies into political orders which subvert democratic change. Drawing on the findings of a case study of the construction industry in Tanzania, Lucy Koechlin conceptualises corruption as a signifier enabling, rather than preventing, social actors to articulate democratic claims. She provides compelling arguments for a more sophisticated understanding of and empirical attentiveness to emancipatory change in African political orders.