
2012 Corruption Perceptions Index - zoowar
http://www.transparency.org/cpi2012/results
======
atdrummond
Is corruption actually the problem?

Perhaps nations with high levels of corruption are lacking basic legal
institutions that tend to allow open market economies to function effectively.
That is, corruption is simply a side-effect of institutional deficiency.

Chris Blattman ([http://chrisblattman.com/2012/11/05/corruption-and-
developme...](http://chrisblattman.com/2012/11/05/corruption-and-development-
not-what-you-think/)) says: "Most of us fail to imagine that corruption can
also grease the wheels of prosperity. Yet in places where bureaucracies and
organizations are inefficient (meaning entrepreneurs and big firms struggle to
transport or export or comply with regulation), corruption could improve
efficiency and growth. Bribes can act like a piece rate or price
discrimination, and give faster or better service to the firms with highest
opportunity cost of waiting."

Likewise John Wallis (<http://www.nber.org/chapters/c9977.pdf>) wrote an
informative economic history paper about American corruption in 2006. The
conclusion? "No society with a systematically corrupt political system has
limited government. The economic system is always at risk, entry is limited,
competition is fettered, and economic policies are shaped by politicians to
maintain their political control of the government. Crony capitalism is not a
manifestation of venal corruption—it is a symptom of systematic corruption."

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ilaksh
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/GNI_PPP_P...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/GNI_PPP_Per_Capita.png)

$

"Corruption" is a structural aspect of our system. It is inherent in the
relationship between government, money, and people (in their current forms).

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firefoxman1
What causes the US to be (or at the very least, be _considered_ ) so corrupt?
My main theory is lack of political parties. Just like how companies take
advantage of the consumer the most when they're a monopoly, the government can
take advantage of its people when the party's worst chance of getting elected
is close to 48%. However, I'm sure there are many other factors that play into
governmental corruption.

~~~
rayiner
Since this is a perception index, I think isolation has a lot to do with it.
Americans don't travel much, our news generally ignores countries we're not
bombing, etc, and so Americans have very little frame of reference for this
sort of judgment.

I personally marvel at what an upstanding and civil government we have, but
then again my family is from Bangladesh and we left because my dad was sick of
having to do things like pay a bribe to get a phone line installed (we went
months without phone service in our house because of his intransigence).

~~~
fusiongyro
I think you're exactly right. We have a strong, visceral reaction to
corruption, and we detect it in everything.

Living in New Mexico can be a bit of an absurd illustration that this isn't a
universal view because we tend to have scandals involving these ancient
political family dynasties. Whenever one of them is caught handing over a
bunch of state contracts to their nephew (nepotism in its truest sense) we get
a few great sound bites like "What's the big deal? He's just my nephew!"

In other countries this kind of corruption is seen as simply taking care of
one's own or the cost of doing business. I'm glad we overreact to it.

~~~
rayiner
I think it's a good thing too. One of the things I love about Americans is
that we're culturally very intolerant of corruption and scandel. I just find
it amusing sometimes how people don't know how good they have it.

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swang
The infographic is not very informative because you can't tell if 100 is bad
or good at a glance. Sure, "red" usually means negative. But yellow means?

Also in this case since 100 is "good" it's confusing because again, on the
initial read people will think, "This country has a score of 65, does that
means 65% corrupt?" (whatever 65% corrupt means, maybe 65% more corrupt than
other countries)

~~~
PieSquared
It helps to have some context. Being moderately aware of global politics, I
know that Russia is considerably more corrupt than the United States. Russia
is reddish; the USA is yellow-ish. The rest I can figure out, and the numbers
and labels make it all a bit more quantitative.

To be fair, the infographic could be better, but I think all the information
is there and relatively easy to parse, so calling it "not very informative" is
a bit extreme.

~~~
fusiongyro
There's a hilarious scene in _Travels in Siberia_ where the author takes a
trip to the Russian far east with a retired couple from California with
extremely exacting dietary restrictions. At one point the old man is
complaining loudly about all the money he spent on food and lodging—what did
it go to? The author replies calmly: bribes. When they finally pass through
Russian customs at the end of the trip, he complains to the Russian customs
agent, saying the author told him most of the money for their trip went to
bribes. The customs agent replies calmly: yes, probably.

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DanBlake
I did not know that Venezuela was perceived as being so corrupt. I certainly
would not have ever thought it to be perceived lower than many african
countries. Is it really that much crazier there then other south/central
american countries?

~~~
diego_moita
Well... yes. I mean don't you really know that Chavez has been stealing
businesses and companies and giving them to accomplices? The Chavez
"nomenklatura" has taken hold of the country and been pillaging it for quite
some time. The crime rate is exploding, there have been shortages of food and
energy. It is a collapsing country.

~~~
DanBlake
I did know about Chavez but did not realize it was to the level of
Congo/Zimbabwe/Libya being more desirable.

~~~
krakensden
At the low end, I'd guess it's probably more about measurement techniques than
reality. Venezuela is not the most stable, prosperous, or wealthy society, but
it's also not "hyperinflation and broad property seizure", and it's certainly
not "armed gangs wandering the country raping and murdering indiscriminately."

~~~
uokesita
Venezuela's inflation ->

<http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/inflation-cpi>

You can search other sources...

Venezuela's crime ->

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2uoMlBvp2k&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2uoMlBvp2k&feature=youtu.be)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMP44VR9J-M>

<http://www.vice.com/vice-news/venezuela-body-count-part-1>

[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtjiwd_extreme-world-
venezu...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtjiwd_extreme-world-
venezuela_news)

~~~
DanBlake
Watched the vice video which confirms my thoughts (Venezuela should have been
ranked much higher).

Please watch the below, which shows congo (which ranked higher than venezuela
in this study) :

<http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-vice-guide-to-congo-1>

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rm999
I'm surprised at how well the UAE does (very close to the USA), especially
when things like this happen:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8450722.stm>

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herbig
This says nothing of where the respondents were from. Did they survey people
in every country about their own country, or about others? It's a pretty
worthless info graphic without knowing that.

~~~
eru
Please have a look around the site.

~~~
herbig
I tried, but I couldn't find the info I was looking for, and the drop down
menus gave me seizures.

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sethg
What I’d really like to know is: which countries have significantly increased
their scores over the past five years or so, and how did they do it?

~~~
diego_moita
Brazil is getting better: [http://world.time.com/2012/12/06/tale-of-two-
corruptos-brazi...](http://world.time.com/2012/12/06/tale-of-two-corruptos-
brazil-and-mexico-on-different-transparency-paths/)

The trick here is a judiciary that is beginning to work and an aggressive
press.

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Sniffnoy
Why do we care about the _perception_ of corruption?

~~~
spindritf
Because perception is reality and if people believe the system is corrupt,
they will act accordingly. Also, those types of questions are sometimes very
predictive[1].

[1] "we probe the value of questions probing voters’ expectations, which
typically ask: “Regardless of who you plan to vote for, who do you think will
win the upcoming election?” We demonstrate that polls of voter expectations
consistently yield more accurate forecasts than polls of voter intentions."

<http://users.nber.org/~jwolfers/Papers/VoterExpectations.pdf>

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admford
Ugh, real nice. The country which I live in is in 72nd position. Given the
next elections here, I wouldn't be surprised if we dropped even lower.

Third from last in ALL the EU nations isn't something a country should stand
for.

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known
You call it corruption. They call it lobbying.

