Is Transparency International's measure of corruption still valid?

Critics say the NGO's Corruption Perceptions Index conveys an 'elite bias' and doesn't show evidence of actual corruption
MDG : WFP food theft in Somalia
Somali women selling stolen food aid at a market in Mogadishu hide their faces. Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia are the bottom three countries in the 2013 Corruption Perception Index. Photograph: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

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 on Tuesday.

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".

Denmark and New Zealand top the list as the countries with the lowest perceived levels of public sector corruption; Afghanistan, North Korea and Somalia are the bottom three. More than two-thirds of the 177 countries examined scored below 50, a proportion similar to previous years.

Australia is labelled one of "the biggest decliners", alongside countries such as Syria, Libya, Mali, Spain, Mauritius, Iceland and Guatemala. The biggest improvers include Burma, Senegal, Nepal, Greece, and Lesotho.

Corruption perceptions index 2013, mapped. Drag the map to see countries not immediately in view. Source: Transparency International

Transparency International trumpets the CPI as "the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide". The high-profile and widely reported index has, however, amassed its fair share of critics over the last two decades.

Some have attacked the CPI's reliance on the opinions of a small group of experts and businesspeople. This, says Alex Cobham, fellow at the Centre for Global Development, "embeds a powerful and misleading elite bias in popular perceptions of corruption" and can lead to inappropriate policy responses.

In an article for Foreign Policy, entitled Corrupting Perceptions, Cobham suggested earlier this year that Transparency International should drop the CPI and said it would be more useful to collect better evidence of actual corruption or information about how corruption is or isn't affecting citizens. "The index corrupts perceptions to the extent that it's hard to see a justification for its continuing publication," he said.

Others argue it is simply impossible to relay in a single number the scale and depth of a complex issue like corruption, and compare countries accordingly. "The index gets much-needed attention, but it overshadows [Transparency International's] other activities and exposes it to criticism," said the Economist in a 2010 article that dubbed the CPI the "murk meter".

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.

The data from the 2013 CPI is below. What can you do with it?

Corruption perceptions index 2013

Click heading to sort

Country / Territory
Country Rank
CPI 2013 Score
Denmark 1 91
New Zealand 1 91
Finland 3 89
Sweden 3 89
Norway 5 86
Singapore 5 86
Switzerland 7 85
Netherlands 8 83
Australia 9 81
Canada 9 81
Luxembourg 11 80
Germany 12 78
Iceland 12 78
United Kingdom 14 76
Barbados 15 75
Belgium 15 75
Hong Kong 15 75
Japan 18 74
Uruguay 19 73
United States 19 73
Ireland 21 72
Bahamas 22 71
Chile 22 71
France 22 71
Saint Lucia 22 71
Austria 26 69
United Arab Emirates 26 69
Estonia 28 68
Qatar 28 68
Botswana 30 64
Bhutan 31 63
Cyprus 31 63
Portugal 33 62
Puerto Rico 33 62
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 33 62
Israel 36 61
Taiwan 36 61
Brunei 38 60
Poland 38 60
Spain 40 59
Cape Verde 41 58
Dominica 41 58
Lithuania 43 57
Slovenia 43 57
Malta 45 56
Korea (South) 46 55
Hungary 47 54
Seychelles 47 54
Costa Rica 49 53
Latvia 49 53
Rwanda 49 53
Mauritius 52 52
Malaysia 53 50
Turkey 53 50
Georgia 55 49
Lesotho 55 49
Bahrain 57 48
Croatia 57 48
Czech Republic 57 48
Namibia 57 48
Oman 61 47
Slovakia 61 47
Cuba 63 46
Ghana 63 46
Saudi Arabia 63 46
Jordan 66 45
Macedonia 67 44
Montenegro 67 44
Italy 69 43
Kuwait 69 43
Romania 69 43
Bosnia and Herzegovina 72 42
Brazil 72 42
Sao Tome and Principe 72 42
Serbia 72 42
South Africa 72 42
Bulgaria 77 41
Senegal 77 41
Tunisia 77 41
China 80 40
Greece 80 40
Swaziland 82 39
Burkina Faso 83 38
El Salvador 83 38
Jamaica 83 38
Liberia 83 38
Mongolia 83 38
Peru 83 38
Trinidad and Tobago 83 38
Zambia 83 38
Malawi 91 37
Morocco 91 37
Sri Lanka 91 37
Algeria 94 36
Armenia 94 36
Benin 94 36
Colombia 94 36
Djibouti 94 36
India 94 36
Philippines 94 36
Suriname 94 36
Ecuador 102 35
Moldova 102 35
Panama 102 35
Thailand 102 35
Argentina 106 34
Bolivia 106 34
Gabon 106 34
Mexico 106 34
Niger 106 34
Ethiopia 111 33
Kosovo 111 33
Tanzania 111 33
Egypt 114 32
Indonesia 114 32
Albania 116 31
Nepal 116 31
Vietnam 116 31
Mauritania 119 30
Mozambique 119 30
Sierra Leone 119 30
Timor-Leste 119 30
Belarus 123 29
Dominican Republic 123 29
Guatemala 123 29
Togo 123 29
Azerbaijan 127 28
Comoros 127 28
Gambia 127 28
Lebanon 127 28
Madagascar 127 28
Mali 127 28
Nicaragua 127 28
Pakistan 127 28
Russia 127 28
Bangladesh 136 27
Côte d´Ivoire 136 27
Guyana 136 27
Kenya 136 27
Honduras 140 26
Kazakhstan 140 26
Laos 140 26
Uganda 140 26
Cameroon 144 25
Central African Republic 144 25
Iran 144 25
Nigeria 144 25
Papua New Guinea 144 25
Ukraine 144 25
Guinea 150 24
Kyrgyzstan 150 24
Paraguay 150 24
Angola 153 23
Congo Republic 154 22
Democratic Republic of the Congo 154 22
Tajikistan 154 22
Burundi 157 21
Myanmar 157 21
Zimbabwe 157 21
Cambodia 160 20
Eritrea 160 20
Venezuela 160 20
Chad 163 19
Equatorial Guinea 163 19
Guinea-Bissau 163 19
Haiti 163 19
Yemen 167 18
Syria 168 17
Turkmenistan 168 17
Uzbekistan 168 17
Iraq 171 16
Libya 172 15
South Sudan 173 14
Sudan 174 11
Afghanistan 175 8
Korea (North) 175 8
Somalia 175 8

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