Dr. Jörg Wiegratz edits RoAPE special issue on economic fraud in neoliberal Africa

Dr. Jörg Wiegratz has edited a special issue of the Review of African Political Economy (RoAPE) journal, entitled Economic fraud in neoliberal Africa: power, accumulation and class formation.

The editorial – ‘They’re all in it together’: the social production of fraud in capitalist Africa – is free access, available here.

The articles in this collection extend some of the debates in Africa and beyond about present-day economic fraud, particularly regarding: the political character of fraud, and of anti-fraud measures, the relationship between neoliberal reform and fraud, the relationship between power, class and fraud, and the social making or co-production of fraud by a wide range of social actors who are enabling fraud.

Dr. Wiegratz, Lecturer in Political Economy of Global Development, has a briefing on Anti-fraud measures in Southern Africa featured in the collection, which was co-authored with a former undergraduate student in the School, Nataliya Mykhalchenko.

Nataliya began researching anti-fraud initiatives on the African continent in 2015 as part of a funded five-week Leeds University Summer Research Internship Scheme. In 2016, supported by RoAPE, she continued her research. To date she has looked at anti-fraud measures in nine countries. She is currently studying for a Masters by Research in Social Research, Law and Legal Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She is now working with Dr. Wiegratz on the second part of the briefing which will focus on anti-fraud measures in East and West Africa.

Dr. Wiegratz has also written a blog post discussing the topic of economic fraud in neoliberal Africa featured on the Review of African Political Economy blog.