Governance, Corruption & State Capacity
What governance means measured honestly, why corruption is an equilibrium rather than a moral failing, and the anti-corruption and capacity-building interventions that actually move the needle — grounded in the audit-experiment evidence.
8
Modules
~6h 25m
Reading time
Intermediate
Level
Self-paced
Format
Syllabus
- 01→
What governance means, measured honestly
The Worldwide Governance Indicators, the perception-vs-reality critique, and the gap between de jure rules and de facto practice.
~45 minModule 01 - 02→
State capacity — fiscal, legal, collective
Besley-Persson on the three capacities, why capacity is built not bestowed, and the binding constraint behind the African delivery gap.
~50 minModule 02 - 03→
The economics of corruption
Shleifer-Vishny, grease-the-wheels vs sand-the-wheels, corruption as a tax on investment, and the self-reinforcing trap.
~50 minModule 03 - 04→
Measuring corruption
Perception vs experience, Olken's missing-expenditure audit experiments, and how to measure a thing everyone hides.
~50 minModule 04 - 05→
Bureaucratic quality and the Weberian state
Meritocratic recruitment vs patronage, the Finan-Olken-Pande evidence on the personnel economics of the state.
~45 minModule 05 - 06→
Anti-corruption that works (and doesn't)
Top-down audits, e-government and procurement reform, and why most anti-corruption drives fail — the IFMIS and eCitizen lessons.
~50 minModule 06 - 07→
Decentralisation and accountability
Does devolution reduce corruption or just relocate it? Yardstick competition, capture, and Kenya's county experience.
~50 minModule 07 - 08→
Transparency, audit, and the citizen
The Auditor-General, social audit, open contracting, and the specific transparency tools with evidence behind them.
~45 minModule 08
How to use this course
Start with module 01 if the material is new; skip ahead if you have prior exposure. Each module is self-contained but the arc is sequential — the projects in the final module assume the toolkit from modules 1-11. Every module ends with key takeaways and a curated further-reading list with primary sources.