Political Failure and Bureaucratic Potential in Africa

Recent scholarship theorizes that shortcomings in good governance are a result of political, not bureaucratic, failures. These challenges are no less important in the developing world, and they are particularly acute in many African countries where resources are scarce and political development is relatively limited. Although the impacts of public administration quality on governance outcomes in Africa are well established, the empirical relationship between political failures and bureaucratic capacity remains underexplored. In addition, political issues in developing countries often cause bureaucratic pathologies to vary across the additional dimensions of corruption, judicial independence, and political pluralism. Using a combination of unique datasets, I turn the recent theories on political failure into testable propositions for how these processes unfold in the African context. The findings are of interest both for improving governance in developing countries and adding to the growing body of literature examining the severity of the challenges posed by political failure in various contexts.