Policing Corruption or Corrupted Policing? Social Norms and Policing in Ghana

This article is a qualitative study of the relationship between social norms and corrupt behaviour in the Ghana Police Service. Although there is a growing body of literature exploring this nexus in very different settings, relatively less attention has been given to understanding the extent of the normative influence of social norms over corrupt behaviour. Social norms do not operate in a vacuum; therefore, to better understand their normative influence, it is critical to have analytical clarity of the broader social, economic and political settings in which they unfold. In order to so, this article deploys and adapts a set of analytical tools developed by Ben Cislaghi and Lori Heise, namely, the ‘dynamic framework for social change’ and the ‘theory of normative spectrum’ to map the different factors shaping corrupt behaviour and their interaction with relevant social norms. The data used for this analysis consist in 43 in person interviews with police officers and other anti-corruption stakeholders, collected in different rounds using semi-structured interviews and textual vignettes as eliciting tools. The findings of this research suggest that behavioural elements of sociality appear to be regulated by different enabling factors, which can impact the salience of the norm at play.