Auditing Good Government in Africa

This book gives a comprehensive overview of the literature on development in Sub-Saharan Africa, and challenges the notions of African public officials presented there. It focuses on public audit institutions and offers rich empirical research results, which contradicts many assumptions made in the literature on development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

"This book does a masterful job of clarifying how public officials in developing countries handle foreign inspired administrative reforms and international practices, in relation to their local circumstances. It offers an excellent set of case studies that demonstrate how a distinct professional identity among African public auditors has emerged. Policy-makers, professionals and scholars should be grateful to have such a well-crafted, finely-balanced contribution to the literature on organizational change and professionalization." - Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Chr. Michelsen Institute and the International Centre for Tax and Development

"In this well-argued and ambitious study, Gustavson demonstrates that institutional and professional logics of audit institutions in African countries do not differ much from their counterparts in the industrialized world. The study makes a key contribution to the literature, as its results contrast to many conventional notions about public institutions in developing countries." - Shirin Ahlback Oberg, Uppsala University, Sweden

Autorentext
Maria Gustavson is Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is affiliated with the Quality of Government Institute and has been a visiting scholar at London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research primarily concerns administrative reforms in developing countries, audit and democratic accountability and effects of audit on public sector performance. Gustavson is also appointed as Board Member of the Swedish Government's Expert Group for Analyzing and Evaluating Swedish International Aid.

Inhalt
Acknowledgments 1. Introduction - Good Government and Development in Africa 2. The Dynamics of Public Sector Reform Two Research Traditions 3. The African Context of Public Auditors 4. State Audit Conceptualized 5. The National Audit Offices of Botswana and Namibia 6. Dimensions of Development - Transnational Professional Communities 7. Conclusions Appendix References