Corruption is pervasive in Sub-Saharan Africa’s educational sector. The phenomenon includes not only bribery but also practices that the World Bank has labeled "quiet corruption." While anti-corruption interventions tackling such practices are typically based on assumptions of rational decision-making from classical economics, Cosimo analyses petty corruption practices through a behavioural lens.

Chapter 8 in Corruption in Public Administration: An Ethnographic Approach, edited by Davide Torsello.

Despite the growth in literature on political corruption, contributions from field research are still exiguous. This book, edited by Davide Torsello, provides a timely and much needed addition to current research, bridging the gap between macro level quantitative indicators of corruption and micro level qualitative evidence through an innovative ethnographic approach to the study of corruption and integrity in public administration.

This article applies a novel conceptual framework to characterise and assess the repertoire of practices used by informal networks to redistribute power and access to resources. These distinct norms and practices are typologised as co-optation, control, and camouflage. Co-optation involves recruitment into the network by means of the reciprocal exchange of favours. Control is about ensuring discipline amongst network members by means of shaming and social isolation. Camouflage refers to the formal facades behind which informality hides and is about protecting and legitimising the network.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

The UK Department for International Development (DFID), through its East Africa Research Fund (EARF), commissioned the Basel Institute on Governance to conduct the research project “Corruption, Social Norms and Behaviours in East Africa” aiming at shedding light into those “[behavioural] factors that influence the propensity for poor people to engage in, resist and report ‘corrupt transactions’” in three East African countries, namely, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

This paper highlights the key findings of a study conducted as part of the Basel Institute's contribution to ANTICORRP WP4 "the ethnographic study of corruption."

It explores the attitudes towards corrupt practices in the health sector among citizens in Dar es Salaam and how those are linked to coping mechanisms that have been spontaneously organised at the community level as well as to generalised perceptions on the role of the state and the prevailing legal order in contemporary Tanzania.

This policy brief summarises the main findings and lessons learned from research on corruption, social norms and behaviours in Tanzania. While the findings show that petty corruption is prevalent and results in inequitable public service delivery, they also inform that citizen and public officials’ attitudes and behaviours towards corruption are shifting as a result of changes in the political environment.