Crisis-induced corruption and citizens’ evaluations of government COVID-19 response in Africa: the moderating role of corruption control

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic profoundly disrupted societies worldwide, creating not only a global health emergency but also a severe test of governance. Governments were required to mobilise resources with unprecedented urgency, under conditions of uncertainty and limited oversight. In this setting, politicians and bureaucrats exercised unusually broad discretion over resource allocation. We argue that these conditions created opportunities for corruption – what we term crisis-induced corruption – the misuse of public resources that emerges in crisis contexts where urgent spending collides with fragile oversight. Drawing on Afrobarometer Round 9 surveys from 39 African countries, we examine how perception of crisis-induced corruption (COVID-19 corruption) shaped citizens’ evaluations of government mismanagement and whether these effects varied with institutional quality (control of corruption). Results from multilevel models show that citizens who perceive higher levels of COVID-19 corruption are more likely to judge their governments as mismanaging the pandemic. However, contrary to expectations, we do not find evidence that stronger corruption control buffers governments from these negative perceptions. Instead, in countries with higher corruption control, corruption perceptions are linked to a sharper increase in perceived government mismanagement of the pandemic. Robustness checks – including disaggregating government mismanagement into pandemic management and relief distribution, and employing alternative outcomes such as trust in vaccine safety and satisfaction with relief provision – confirm the stability of these results. The findings highlight not only the damaging impact of corruption during global emergencies but also the critical importance of effective crisis management for sustaining public trust.