Puzzle :
The research questions to be used in the research are:
The main question: What is the magnitude of corruption in government within Zimbabwe?
Other questions.
Who are the presidents who have stayed longer in Africa due to corruption?
How can corruption as well as abuse of power be fought among presidents in African corrupt countries?How have various government institutions failed to curb corruption in Zimbabwe. Explanatory Hunch
African leadership is top when it comes to corruption and abuse of power. It is seen that most presidents in many countries tend to deserve or long terms being in authority. or many, they tend to abuse this power by misusing funds, choosing other leaders with racism and tribalism and most of them work not for the benefits o the country but their benefits. It has been hard to fight against corruption for most of the institutions serving this duty are not committed and their members are also corrupt. Judiciary and executive arms of the government are not doing enough to effectively curn corruption.Therefore,various institutions within Zimbambwe are well addressed to make sure that corruption is eradicated.
Comparative Strategy to adopt to assess explanation
There will be methods used to assess explanation as well as the design, procedure, and analysis. Both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to collect data. The procedure to carry out the research will involve groups of people from Africa, and they will carry out the research in different countries through interviews and questionnaires and then analyzed.[1]
Case selection
Case studies will be selected so as to give a representation of corruption in Africa by most presidents. Case selection strategies will be used in making the choice of the cases to choose for the research. It will be assumed that the cases selected will provide results that are presenting the whole population of Africa.
Comments: You’ve got a really interesting topic here, although I’d like to see narrow in on a single identifiable puzzle so as to ensure that you keep your analysis focused on explanation rather than providing a detailed comparative description of corruption in African states. You might, for example, focus on the persistent corruption in a particular African state (Zimbabwe, the DRC, etc…) and ask why/how can such corruption be able and allowed to persist for so long (you could also, conversely, look at an African state that is an outlier in terms of having limited corruption and use that as your puzzle). Whatever you settle on, that is your starting point, and you need to do two things from that point on. First, be sure, in your paper, to provide the reader with a bit of comparative checking at the outset of your paper to illustrate how/to what extent corruption in African states is a problem or a puzzle in need of explanation. Once you do so you’ll need to be a bit more explicit using comparative tools as a means of trying to assess a possible explanation for that puzzle. You need to be specific re what you think might explain your puzzle, what comparative strategy you are using (MSS, MDS), how that informs your case selection (you need to justify the use of India as a comparative case – how does it help you to assess your causal hunch), and what kinds of data you would need to gather. You also need to be explicit in discussing the pros/cons of your choices. All in all though this is a good start.
Students will submit a 10-page research paper that develops a clear research question (why does X vary in cases Y and Z) and engages the extant literature in order present an answer. Original research is not necessary as I am primarily interested in the student’s ability to identify and acquire relevant literature, conduct a clear and concise review and critical analysis of this literature, and apply it to a real world phenomenon in order to develop an explanation as to why variance is observed.
Work Cited
Mbaku, John Mukum. 2010. Corruption in Africa: causes, consequences, and cleanups. Lanham: Lexington Books
[1] Mbaku, John Mukum. 2010. Corruption in Africa: causes, consequences, and cleanups. Lanham: Lexington Books
