Capitalism and Economic Crime in Africa

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of economic crimes and market irregularities, including matters of trickery, illicit trade, parallel economy, economies of violence and criminalisation of the poor in neoliberal Africa. It interrogates economic crime as a product of neoliberal reform and transformation (as well as of historical structures). It unpacks crime as a social – and particularly as a political-economic – phenomenon of cap­italism. The book brings together a collection of research articles, briefings and blog posts that were published over a period of nearly 40 years (1986–2023), in the acclaimed journal Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) and on its website roape.net.

Featuring contributions from leading experts in the field, including a foreword by Yusuf K. Serunkuma and an afterword by Laureen Snider, the volume explores what these eco­nomic crimes have to do with, and can tell us about power, class, accumulation, depend­ency, (under)development, state–business relations and capitalist transformation on the continent. In so doing, it sheds new light on the co-production of these crimes by a range of actors from the realms of economy, politics and international development, including international financial institutions and other donors. It responds to the imperative to advance the analysis of the link between capitalism and crime in Africa as more countries across the continent become fully capitalist societies.

Illustrating the relevance of African cases to debates in and across various disciplines – concerning, for example, corporate and white-collar crimes, state crimes, crimes of the powerful, (il)legality, regulation and social harm – this volume engages with a variety of literature to explain economic crimes as phenomena of global and local capitalism. It provides readers from academia, government, business, media, civil society and education with a striking source of information and analysis.

Jörg Wiegratz is Lecturer in Political Economy of Global Development at the University of Leeds, School of Politics and International Studies. He is Senior Research Associate, Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg, and Research Associate at the Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, United States International University-Africa, Nairobi. He specializes in neoliberalism, fraud and anti-fraud measures, commercialisation and economic pressure and related aspects of moral and political economy, with a focus on Uganda and Kenya. He is member of the editorial working group of Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE). His books include Neoliberal Moral Economy: Capitalism, Socio‑Cultural Change and Fraud in Uganda, Neoliberalism and the Moral Economy of Fraud (co-edited with David Whyte) and Uganda: The Dynamics of Neoliberal Transformation (co-edited with Giuliano Martiniello and Elisa Greco). Wiegratz is editor of the blog series Economic trickery, fraud and crime in Africa and Capitalism in Africa (roape.net) and co-editor of Pressure in the City (with Catherine Dolan and Mario Schmidt, developingeconomics.org).