Challenges of Post-conflict State’s Institutionalised Corruption in Sierra Leone: A Layered Institutional Perspective

This chapter analyses how the taken-for-granted institutionalised patterns and practices layered over decades in Sierra Leone provide a conceptual perspective on the systemic corruption-related phenomenon associated with state institutions. In the post-conflict period of Sierra Leone, tenacious corruption-related patterns have remained. Analysis of its probable causes has primarily focused on a rational choice perspective, placing the actor-centric notion of interest maximisation in centrality. Thus, this problematisation of the corruption phenomenon profoundly remains inattentive to the social institutional patterns. With careful examination of social institutions and use as the framework, the study argues that the customs and practices of the corruption-related phenomenon within state institutions in Sierra Leone could be much appreciated by uncovering how layered social institutional and behavioural patterns evolved over decades within the social-political space of the country. The practices, the study argues, have been taken for granted and normalised to become characteristic of the political superstructure of the state system within which corruption has not been unconnected. This study employs process tracing and elements of the path dependence approach to analyse pertinent data sources.