article · International Journal of Social Economics
Crimes and conflicts create severe barriers to economic and social development across Africa. This research investigates the governance instruments best suited to combat these challenges, assessing a cross-sectional dataset of 38 African countries using heteroscedasticity consistent ordinary least squares regression. The analysis incorporates controls for factors including age dependency, police and security staffing, per capita economic prosperity, education levels, and population density. The findings establish that democratic or autocratic regimes, alongside voice and accountability, do not significantly correlate with reduced crime. Instead, specific institutional qualities show clear influence, ranked in increasing order of importance from regulatory quality to government effectiveness, political stability, the rule of law, and anti-corruption measures. Ultimately, controlling corruption proves to be the most decisive governance tool for reducing both crimes and conflicts.
Violent conflict and widespread crime severely destabilise communities and impede development across the African continent. This research indicates that high-level political systems matter less in reducing violence than direct institutional capacity. By highlighting anti-corruption measures as the most potent mechanism, the findings help public bodies and international agencies direct governance funding toward the interventions that deliver the greatest security returns.
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Purpose – Crimes and conflicts are seriously undermining African development. The purpose of this paper is to assess the best governance tools in the fight against the scourges. Design/methodology/approach – The authors assess a sample of 38 African countries. Owing to the cross-sectional structure of the data set, the authors adopt a heteroscedasticity consistent ordinary least squares estimation technique. For further robustness purposes, the authors employ Ramsey’s regression equation specification error test. Findings – The following findings are established. First, democracy, autocracy and voice and accountability have no significant negative correlations with crime. Second, the increasing relevance of government quality in the fight is as follows: regulation quality, government effectiveness, political stability, rule of law and corruption-control. Third, corruption-control is the most effective mechanism in fighting crime (conflicts). Practical implications – The findings are significantly strong when controlling for age dependency, number of police (and security) officers, per capita economic prosperity, educational level and population density. Justifications for the edge of corruption-control (as the most effective governance tool) and policy implications are discussed. Originality/value – The study is timely given the political instability, wars and conflicts currently marring African development.
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DOI: 10.1108/ijse-11-2014-0233
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