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How people appraise their government: corruption perception of police and political legitimacy in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2022

William Hatungimana
William Hatungimana*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
*
Email: williamhatu@ku.edu
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Abstract

Recent protests against police brutality in Nigeria and the Arab Spring, which was sparked by an incident of police brutality in Tunisia, led to public demands that brought political reforms. This paper explores the question, how do citizens evaluate their government in regards to corruption? Using the Afrobarometer Wave 6 dataset, I investigate the relationship between the public's perception of police and upper-level government officials’ corruption in African countries. Due to lack of transparency, the public has no direct information from upper-level bureaucracy but can evaluate corruption of upper-level government officials through direct experience with police. My finding demonstrates that regardless of regime type, the corruption perception of police influences the corruption perception of upper-level government officials. The public cues to evaluate their government quality are likely derived from interactions with police. Therefore corruption perception of police can affect government legitimacy.

Keywords

Policestreet-level government officialsupper-level government officialscorruption perceptionpetty corruptiongrand corruptionAfrica
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 1 - 22
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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