Moral Economies of Corruption

Steven Pierce is Senior Lecturer in Modern African History at the University of Manchester. He is the coeditor of Discipline and the Other Body: Correction, Corporeality, Colonialism, also published by Duke University Press, and the author of Farmers and the State in Colonial Kano: Land Tenure and the Legal Imagination.

• Acknowledgments  ixIntroduction: Corruption Discourse and the Performance of Politics  1Part I. From Caliphate to Federal Republic1. A Tale of Two Emirs: Colonialism and Bureaucratizing Emirates, 1900–1948  272. The Political Time: Ethnicity and Violence, 1948–1970  633. Oil and the "Army Arrangement": Corruption and the Petro-State, 1970–1999  105Part II. Corruption, Nigeria, and the Moral Imagination4. Moral Economies of Corruption  1535. Nigerian Corruption and the Limits of the State  188Conclusion  219Notes  231Bibliography  257Index  277

"Moral Economies of Corruption is not only rich history, but also a theoretically insightful analysis that has much to offer beyond its particularism. Scholars interested in corruption in other parts of Africa, and in other regions of the world, will find much to ponder and appreciate." - Daniel Jordan Smith (American Ethnologist) "[T]his is a superb and path-breaking book. Through meticulous attention to detail, it builds an argument that is as important as it is compelling. And, ironically, it is by refusing to compromise on historical and cultural specificity that it makes its most important contribution to understanding and engaging critically and constructively with a global discourse." - Kate Hampshire (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) "The strength of Pierce’s book is the depth of its historical excavation and the synchronization of relevant data on the diverse forms of corruption across Nigeria’s multitudinous ethnicities at different periods in the country’s over one hundred years of statehood." - John Olushola Magbadelo (African Studies Quarterly) "Pierce makes a significant contribution to the analysis of corruption in Nigeria by going beyond the dominant Eurocentric and neo-Weberian analyses, which are couched in universalistic, Eurocentric, and derogatory terms. . . . A useful addition to the study of Nigeria’s contemporary history and political culture." - Jeremiah Dibua (American Historical Review) "Nigerian corruption has attracted the attention of numerous scholars over the years, and this has given rise to a plethora of insightful analyses, from several different angles. However, Steven Pierce ... offers a new perspective and fresh insight into the discourse. ... Pierce has written a valuable book that focuses our attention on the fundamental problem of corruption in Nigeria." - Azeez Olaniyan (African Studies Review)