Succeeding or failing to reform: A comparative political economic analysis of anti-corruption reforms in selected Sub-Sahara African countries

The fact that donor-initiated anti-corruption reforms have had varied outcomes in African countries suggests it is an important and puzzling issue worth explaining. This phenomenon has increasingly received attention particularly from scholars adopting the neopatrimonialism paradigm. The neopatrimonialism literature, however, is blinded by its deterministic conceptions. In addition, due to elite bias, scholars tend to overlook the critical link of citizens\u27 cognitive ideas. My research contributes to the anti-corruption reforms literature by developing an explanatory model from the premises of the Political Economic Analysis perspective that addresses this oversight. I propose an explanatory model that assumes that political actors take into consideration the political economic environment, including what citizens think (as lower order information), as they attend to anti-corruption reforms in their countries. Exploring the impact of selected African countries\u27 political economic structures on reform outcomes, the study provides suggestive evidence that points to the pivotal role of citizens, through their cognitive ideas, by influencing how structural features impact corruption control (micro-level) and also as an influential contextual feature (macro-level). Since this study is an attempt at model building, the empirical results ideally serve as a basis for further elaboration and development of the model