Corruption as an empty signifier : politics and political order in Africa / by Lucy Koechlin.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [259]-280) and index.

Preliminary Material -- 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 -- Bibliography -- Index.

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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.