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Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)1 ordering the countries of the world according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians".2 The organization defines corruption as "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain".3
The 2003 poll covered 133 countries; the 2007 survey, 180. A higher score means less (perceived) corruption. The results show seven out of every ten countries (and nine out of every ten developing countries) with an index of less than 5 points out of 10.
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Methods and interpretation
Transparency International commissioned Johann Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).2 The CPI 2005 draws on "16 different polls and surveys from 10 independent institutions… The institutions who provided data for the CPI 2005 are: Columbia University, Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, Information International, International Institute for Management Development, Merchant International Group, Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, World Economic Forum and World Markets Research Centre. Early CPIs used public opinion surveys, but now only "experts" are used. TI requires at least three sources to be available in order to rank a country in the CPI.2
"TI writes in their FAQ on the CPI that "residents' viewpoints correlate well with those of experts abroad. In the past, the experts surveyed in the CPI sources were often business people from industrialised countries; the viewpoint of less developed countries was underrepresented. This has changed over time, giving increasingly voice to respondents from emerging market economies."2
As this index is based on polls, the results are subjective, and less reliable for countries with fewer sources. Also, what is legally defined (or perceived) to be corruption, differs between jurisdictions: a political donation legal in some jurisdiction may be illegal in another; a matter viewed as acceptable tipping in one country may be viewed as bribery in another. In former Soviet states, the term "corruption" itself has become a proxy for the broader frustration with all changes since the breakup of the USSR. Thus, the poll results must be understood quite specifically as measuring a poorly defined public perception, rather than being an objective measure of corruption. More direct corruption-survey data, such as bribe-payer surveys, don't track closely with corruption perceptions data.
Statistics like this are, by nature, imprecise; statistics from different years aren't necessarily comparable. The ICCR itself explains, "…year-to-year changes in a country's score result not only from a changing perception of a country's performance but also from a changing sample and methodology. Each year, some sources are not updated and must be dropped from the CPI, while new, reliable sources are added. With differing respondents and slightly differing methodologies, a change in a country's score may also relate to the fact that different viewpoints have been collected and different questions been asked… [despite] anti-corruption reform… [or] recent exposure of corruption scandals… [i]t is often difficult to improve a CPI score over a short time period, such as one or two years. The CPI is based on data from the past three years (for more on this, see the question on the sources of data, below). This means that a change in perceptions of corruption would only emerge in the index over longer periods of time".4
Criticism
The Corruption Perception Index has sometimes been criticized as the perception of a select few, since it ignores the perception of the wider population, instead focusing on that of a few experts. Furthermore, some have complained that the index records a "mere perception", and that the method followed in preparing the index couldn't measure institutional corruption.5
Additional criticism stems from the use of third-party survey data, which can vary widely in methodology and completeness from country to country. The methodology of the Index itself changes from year to year, thus making even basic better-or-worse comparisons difficult. Media outlets, meanwhile, frequently use the raw numbers as a yardstick for government performance, without clarifying what the numbers mean.
CPI Ranking (2002–2007)
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Worldwide Corruption Perceptions ranking of countries |
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