The yearly Corruption Perceptions Index just came out. Who got the gold medal?

Curious about the world’s most — and least — corrupt countries? On Wednesday Transparency International (TI), a well-known NGO devoted to global anti-corruption, released its annual scorecard.

TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) shows the United States now sits in 16th place (of 180 territories), with a score of 75 out of 100. That’s a small improvement on the 2016 index in which the United States was 18th with a score of 74.

Yet barely a day seems to go by without new corruption allegations involving the Trump administration — including conflicts of interest among top officials and obstruction of justice claims against the president himself. How does that square with this latest CPI report?

How the CPI measures corruption

The CPI is probably the best-known measure of global corruption. The 2017 CPI takes into account 10 surveys and assessments from a range of institutions. The data come predominantly from surveys of business people around the globe.

TI amalgamates that data with assessments by a range of independent analysts to generate each country’s score. A score closer to 100 indicates the country is doing a decent job at preventing public sector corruption. A score below 50 suggests the country has a serious problem, while a score that falls below 30 is an indication that corruption is systematic and systemic within that country. Little more than 30 percent of countries score above 50, while around 3 in 10 score below 30. A worrying picture.


source: washingtonpost