Corruption as Structural Friction: Eight Falsifiable Propositions

This working paper develops a structural theory of corruption as the rational adaptive response of agents to institutional friction: the gap between what formal rules permit and what economic actors require to achieve legitimate objectives. Corruption is reframed from a problem of character or isolated institutional absence to a predictable outcome of mis-modularised architectures in which the components that enable agency are separated from the components that enforce consequence. The theory is stress-tested against Botswana (an agency-inherited system experiencing measurable decay at the seams) and Rwanda (a consequence-engineered system achieving comparable perception scores through vertical enforcement while generating morphological shifts). Eight falsifiable propositions are formalised, each with explicit measurement guidance and failure criteria. Volume is defined as the joint distribution of bribe incidence, size, and location rather than perception indices. A distinction is drawn between residual design-failure friction and deliberately engineered capture. The framework is African-derived yet portable, generating diagnostic predictions for digitalisation experiments, staggered reforms, and cross-country variation in enforcement capacity and political incentives.