Kanday Sewraj Hurburun
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An Exploratory Study aimed at Understanding the Perceptions of Corruption in Political Leadership with specific reference to Sub-Saharan Africa. Kanday Sewraj Hurburun A thesis submitted to the Auckland University of Technology in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy. 2011 Department of Social Sciences Primary supervisor: Professor Charles Crothers Table of Contents List of figures used in study. iv List of tables used in study v Attestation of authorship vi Acknowledgements . vii Abstract. ix An Exploratory Study aimed at Understanding the, Perceptions of Corruption in Political Leadership with specific reference to Sub-Saharan Africa Chapter 1: An introduction to this study 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Background and Relevance for the Study 6 1.3 Researcher's Personal Interest in this Study 9 1.4 Structure of the Thesis 15 Chapter 2: A Review of the Literature With Respect To This Study 16 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Types of Corruption 22 Political and Bureaucratic Corruption: 23 Private and Collective Corruption: 24 Redistributive and Extractive corruption: 2.3 Some Corruption-related concepts 26 2.4 Causes and Consequences of Corruption 27 2.5 Leadership in Africa: Contributing Factors to Corruption and Incapacity 36 2.6 Failed States, Conflict, African Leadership and Nexus with Corruption 45 2.7 Cultural Perceptions of Corruption and Leadership 53 2.8 Indices and Measures of Corruption 60 2.8.1 Transparency International (TI) 63 2.8.2 International Country Risk Guide (ICGR) 64 2.8.3 World Bank 65 2.8.4 The Ibrahim Index (IB Index) 66 2.8.5 Afrobarometer 69 2.9 Advantages and Limitations of Measurement and Data Sources of Corruption/Incapacity 71 ii 2.10 The extent to which Variations in Corruption/Incapacity can be explained statistically by the measure of the factors likely to be causing it. 72 Chapter 3: Analysis and Discussion of Corruption in Africa 74 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Data 78 3.3 IB Index 79 3.4 Discussion 84 3.5 Afrobarometer Data 87 3.6 Discussion 104 3.7 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) scores Africa only 108 3.8 Combined Analysis using all five indices. 113 3.9 Discussion. 119 3.10 Combined Correlations for some Predictors of Corruption. 120 3.11 Discussion. 128 3.12 Africa in comparison to other non-rich OECD countries of the world. 130 3.13 Overall Discussion on Data Used. 132 Chapter 4: Conclusion 134 References 147 Appendices 162 iii List of figures used in the study Figure 1 Bar-graphs with ranking and IB Index of Good Governance ending 2008. 85 Figure 2 Bar-graphs with ranking and IB Index of Good Governance ending 2008. 85 Figure 3 IB Index scores as a function of year for Sub-Saharan Africa. 86 Figure 4 Corruption relating to the Office of the President in eighteen Sub-Saharan African Countries. 88 Figure 5 Corruption: Members of Parliament. 90 Figure 6 Corruption: Local Government Councillors. 91 Figure 7 Corruption: National Government Officials. 92 Figure 8 Corruption: Local Government Officials. 93 Figure 9 Corruption: Police Officials. 94 Figure 10 Corruption: Tax Officials. 95 Figure 11 Corruption: Judges and Magistrates. 96 Figure 12 Corruption: Health Officials. 97 Figure 13 Corruption: Teachers & School Administrators. 98 Figure 14 Corruption Perception Index 2008 scores ranked scores. Sub-Saharan Africa. 109 Figure 15 Scatter Plot Combined scores all indices 18 selected Sub-Saharan Countries. 114 Figure 16 Combined Scatter Plot. 118 Figure 17 Regional Index of Failed States ICRG (Africa). 119 Figure 18 (Failed state Index as of 2005). 120 iv List of tables used in the study Table 1 showing different studies of corruption. 20 Table 2 summary of some of the causes of corruption and the key findings 34 Table 3 (indicators & methodologies used in the study of corruption). 75 Table 4 (some predictors of corruption). 77 Table 5a for the years 2008 and 2005. 80 Table 5b for the years 2002 and 2000. 82 Table 6 Means for Failed and Progressive States. 87 Table 7 Afrobarometer Round 3 correlations Q56a –Q56h Corruption in all tiers of government. 100 Table 8 Afrobarometer Round 4 Correlations of some forms of “bribery” as an indicator of corruption for 20 countries. 105 Table 9a Case Summaries CPI Index2008 Africa only. 110 Table 9b Case Summaries CPI Index2008 Africa only. 111 Table 10 combined data scores for all indices ranking corruption. 115 Table 11Correlations of all major indices including GDP with the exception of Afrobarometer. 116 Table 12 Correlations for some predictors of corruption selected 18 countries. 121 Table 13 indicating compared means of nepotism and cronyism across Non-Rich and African countries. 131 ANOVA Table. 132 v ATTESTATION OF AUTHORSHIP “I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institution of higher learning” ______________________ Kanday Sewraj Hurburun vi ACKNOWLEDGMENT This study is especially dedicated to my wife, Anita Hurburun, who has been the driving force in helping me complete this thesis. I further dedicate this study to my three children and to my late father, Mr. Sewraj Hurburun who was not only a scholar and a gentleman but also a pioneer in education amongst the Indian Indentured Labourers in KwaZulu Natal. I offer salutations and pranams to my most benevolent and revered guru, spiritual teacher and mentor, Sri Swami Shivapadanada Puri, your presence is always felt even though you now dwell in the spirit realm. I thank you for giving me all the encouragement to pursue academic study even when I thought it was futile. A very special thanks to my supervisor Professor Charles Crothers, for his help in this academic journey. He never wavered in his constructive criticisms and always called a “spade a spade”. I have learnt a lot from him, most of which was “not to waffle”. I must also acknowledge the selfless effort of Mrs. Gjurgjica Badzakova (PhD) (University of Auckland) in assisting me with the quantitative aspects of this study. To this end, I offer my deepest appreciation. I would further like to thank my wife for proof reading this study given that she is a Masters Graduate from the Auckland University of Technology. I offer my thanks to Sarah Lee for the academic support across the years of study. vii I would like to extend a special thanks to Professor Anand Singh (University of KwaZulu- Natal) for the hours of advice given on his very sober assessment of the many realistic challenges that face South Africa and the African Sub- Continent as a whole. Last of all, I extend my appreciation to Associate Professor, Stephen Hoadley (University of Auckland) for his friendship and advice over the years throughout my academic endeavours. viii ABSTRACT _______________________________________________________________________ The objective of this thesis is to investigate perceptions of political corruption in Africa, particularly the Sub-Saharan region. The various types of corruption are described and how these interlink is shown. This study also includes a review and utilization of various indices and measurements of corruption in an attempt to answer two fundamental questions namely: 1. Is the Sub-Saharan region of Africa more corrupt than other regions? 2. Are leaders in Sub-Saharan Africa as corrupt as perceived? The literature was reviewed with particular reference to definitions, types, causes and consequences of corruption. The review also identified some specific hypothesized causes and consequences of alleged corruption and perceptions of corrupt leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, various published indices were identified through the literature review which can be accessed for the purposes of comparing the different levels of perceived political corruption relative to specific criteria such as; bribery, cronyism or “rent-seeking”. From the many indices available, five generally well known and documented indices and their respective datasets were selected for further analysis through this study. The sources of the selected indices for this study were from those provided by: Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index; World Bank’s Country Rankings; ICRG (International Country Risk Guide’s) Failed State Index; Ibrahim Index’s Ranking and Good Governance; Afrobarometer’s Round 3 and Round 4 survey questions for 18 to 20 Sub-Saharan African countries respectively. In addition to some comprehensive datasets used in this study, other sources such as Freedom House’s Country Status ratings and the overview of other peripheral indices were also briefly referred to. The researcher collated the results of the major datasets and surveys contained in these indices and subsequently used two “data analysis tools” namely: ix SPSS1 and MS Excel to conduct the analyses mainly using simple correlations and other related statistical procedures. In terms of the combined quantitative and qualitative data, this study has shown that political corruption is prevalent in the Sub-Saharan region and that the allegations or perceptions for this appear to be credible. The extent and magnitude of political corruption is however, a critical question and will therefore require more investigation through further research. Despite the plausibility of corruption being prevalent for m a n y countries within the Sub-Saharan region, this study has revealed that there are also a few other countries in the region which appear to be far more progressive than expected and may thus emerge as being less corrupt when compared to countries in other regions of the world. Selected corruption indicators such as “cronyism” and “nepotism” for example, when compared to non-OECD/non rich countries, indicated that some countries in the Sub–Saharan region were no more corrupt than other non-OECD/non- rich countries specifically in relation to these two selected indicators.