Merchants of Corruption: How Entrepreneurs Manufacture and Supply Bribes

Nnaoke Ufere, Sheri Perelli, Richard Boland and Bo Carlsson

World Development, 2012, vol. 40, issue 12, 2440-2453

Abstract: We wondered how corruption, endemic in Nigeria, is experienced by a specific and understudied set of actors—entrepreneurs. Semi-structured interviews with founders/CEOs of firms in three industries associated with high levels of corruption revealed entrepreneurs—rather than victims of bribe demanding government agents—are themselves active perpetrators of bribery, adopting a set of “bribery best practices” governed by a well-embedded set of social norms, rules, routines, and power relations to deliberately subvert formal state budgetary systems. While reforming institutions is a key focus of anti-corruption policies in many Sub-Saharan African countries, our results suggest a bottom-up approach to remediation based on understanding the practice from the perspective of those who actively engage in it.

Keywords: corruption; entrepreneurial agency; budget capture; structuration; Sub-Saharan Africa; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:40:y:2012:i:12:p:2440-2453

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2012.05.025

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