Administrative Rituals and Reproduction of Corruption in Public Administration of a Transitional Economy

By integrating organizational and institutional theoretical-frames this article, foremostly, formulates a three-dimensional perspective of administrative-rituals approach – administrative universalist-rituals, administrative cultural-rituals and administrative environmental-rituals – to explicate behavioral-bureaucratic synergies that assist the replicability of corruption across public institutions. It mainly contend that whether or not they have internalized proscriptive measures on delinquencies, political and public administrators' actions and behaviors are ritualistically-ordained based on habituates within and outside their organizations. Empirical utility of administrative ritual approach draws on primary and secondary qualitative data collected at the subnational public administration in Kenya. The holistic structural-behavioral framework that emanates from this approach presents a broader perspective; cognizant of transformative developments in modern public administration. It is basically demonstrated that cultural-framings of corruption in Kenya and by extension in similar regions are rarely more about the problematic state and its institutions. Neither is it more about legal and institutional problems. Nor even about the lack of political-goodwill. Instead, it involves a complex-mix of political-administrative and cultural bindings, context-specific externalities and pressures typical in the pursuit of contemporary reform-paradigms. So, corruption could still become habitually and bureaucratically reproduced despite critical structural-reforms directed at deepening accountable and participatory governance processes through public administration