TY - BOOK ID - 540564 TI - Corruption as an empty signifier : politics and political order in Africa PY - 2013 SN - 9789004249998 9789004252981 9004249990 9004252983 PB - Leiden ; Boston : Brill, DB - UniCat KW - Political sociology KW - Africa KW - Political corruption KW - Democratization KW - Politics and government KW - #SBIB:39A73 KW - #SBIB:39A11 KW - #SBIB:35H52 KW - #SBIB:328H41 KW - Etnografie: Afrika KW - Antropologie : socio-politieke structuren en relaties KW - Ethiek van bestuur en beleid KW - Instellingen en beleid: Afrika: comparatief / diverse landen KW - Africa -- Politics and government -- 1960. KW - Democratization -- Africa. KW - Political corruption -- Africa. KW - History & Archaeology KW - Regions & Countries - Africa UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:540564 AB - 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. ER -