Using full cross-national surveys from Afrobarometer, the author looks at African perceptions of the relationship between corruption and inequality.

He argues that:

• Africans perceive a strong link between inequality and corruption, leading to greater income disparities between the rich and the economically poor and the powerful and the powerless.
• While some institutions, such as the legal and party systems, are important aspects of solutions to corruption, "the roots of corruption are largely not institutional, but rather stem from economic inequality and a mistrusting culture, which itself stems from an unequal distribution of wealth."
• High inequality leads to low trust in out-groups and then to high levels of corruption - and back to higher levels of corruption.

He concludes:

Stronger institutions may be an important step, but they are only the first step. The really hard work - more fundamental adjustment of economic and power relationships - remains to be done.