Abstract
Despite stern anticorruption laws, and the government’s pronounced ambition to offer education free of charge, there is evidence to suggest that many families in Uganda with children in public primary schools get solicitated for bribes. The present study examines why ordinary Ugandan parents and schoolteachers recurrently become involved in the lose-lose game of bribery. Drawing primarily on household survey data, this case study takes a deep dive into the institutional “bad barrels” in Uganda, and discusses the dynamics of school-level corruption alongside its effects on policy implementation. For the purpose of this analysis, principal-agent, collective action, and institutional theory, as well as problem-solving functionality and collaborative-network perspectives, are integrated into an ecological framework. By combining these different but complementary theoretical approaches, the study highlights the interaction between social, economic, cultural, relational, and situational factors that may make bribery seem necessary, rational, and worth the risk.