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Corruption Perceptions Index
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Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ordering the countries of the world according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians".
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Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ordering the countries of the world according to "the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians". The organization defines corruption as "the abuse of entrusted power for private gain".
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.
Methods and interpretation
Transparency International commissioned Johann Graf Lambsdorff of the University of Passau to produce the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). 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.
"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."
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. In the Arab world, terms for corruption had to be invented by advocates as recently as the 1990s.
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".
Criticism
The Corruption Perceptions Index has drawn increasing criticism in the decade since its launch, leading to calls for the index to be abandoned. This criticism has been directed at the quality of the Index itself, and the lack of actionable insights created from a simple country ranking.
Because corruption is willfully hidden, it is impossible to measure directly; instead proxies for corruption are used. The CPI uses an eclectic mix of third-party surveys to sample public perceptions of corruption through a variety of questions, ranging from "Do you trust the government?" to "Is corruption a big problem in your country?"
The use of third-party survey data is a source of critcism. The data 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.
The lack of standardization and precision in these surveys is cause for concern. The authors of the CPI argue that averaging enough survey data will solve this; others argue that aggregating imprecise data only masks these flaws without addressing them. In one case, a local Transparency International chapter disowned the index results after a change in methodology caused a country's scores to increase -- media reported it as an "improvement". Other critics point out that definitional problems with the term "corruption" makes the tool problematic for social science.
Aside from precision issues, a more fundamental critique is aimed at the uses of the Index. Critics are quick to concede that the CPI has been instrumental in creating awareness and stimulating debate about corruption. However, as a source of quantitative data in a field hungry for international datasets, the CPI can take on a life of it's own, appearing in cross-country and year-to-year comparisons that the CPI authors themselves admit are not justified by their methodology. The authors state in 2008: "Year-to-year changes in a country's score can either result from a changed perception of a country's performance or from a change in the CPI’s sample and methodology. The only reliable way to compare a country’s score over time is to go back to individual survey sources, each of which can reflect a change in assessment."
The CPI produces a single score per country, which as noted above, cannot be compared year-to-year. As such, the Index is nearly useless as a tool for evaluating the impact of new policies. In the late 2000s, the field has moved towards unpackable, action-oriented indices (such as those by the International Budget Partnership or Global Integrity), which typically measure public policies that relate to corruption, rather than try to assess "corruption" as a whole via proxy measures like perceptions. These alternative measures use original (often locally collected) data and are limited in scope to specific policy practices (such as public access to parliamentary budget documents).
CPI Ranking (2002–2008)
See also
External links
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- critiques the CPI and similar indices.
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