How can you measure the level of corruption in a country? If the abuse of public office for private gain is typically done in secret, under the table or behind closed doors, how can you systematically – and credibly – capture its scale and depth?
For nearly 20 years, campaigning NGO Transparency International has scored and ranked countries according to how corrupt their public sectors are perceived to be. The 2013 edition of its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) was published recently.
Drawing on 13 data sources, and based on the perceptions of businesspeople and country experts, the 2013 CPI gives 177 countries a score from zero to 100, where zero is a perception that the country's public sector is "highly corrupt" and 100 is "very clean".
Transparency International has defended its approach, arguing that capturing experts' perceptions is the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.
"Corruption generally comprises illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations or prosecutions," says the NGO. "There is no meaningful way to assess absolute levels of corruption in countries or territories on the basis of hard empirical data. Possible attempts to do so, such as by comparing bribes reported, the number of prosecutions brought or studying court cases directly linked to corruption, cannot be taken as definitive indicators of corruption levels. Instead, they show how effective prosecutors, the courts or the media are in investigating and exposing corruption."
While the CPI may be Transparency International's most famous product, the NGO acknowledges it cannot tell the full story and now produces a range of other measures, including the Global Corruption Barometer, which looks at citizens' perceptions and experiences of corruption, and the Bribe Payers Index, which ranks exporting countries according to the perceived likelihood that their firms will bribe abroad.
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