Content area
Full text
Introduction
Everyone would agree that corruption is a scourge and one of the most stubborn obstacles to development. Corruption distorts policymaking, misallocates public funds, hinders business operations, and prevents public services from reaching citizens. The most corrupt countries are invariably the poorest countries, according to global indices and press reports of corruption. 1 Governments, development agencies, and nongovernmental organizations have dedicated enormous efforts to fighting corruption, particularly bribery. 2
But are the most corrupt countries always the poorest ones? Is it even meaningful to speak of “the most corrupt country” if corruption varies not only by quantity (1, 2, or 3) but also by quality (A, B, or C)? For instance, taking bribes, stealing public funds, and placing family members of powerful politicians on corporate boards are all examples of corruption, but of different kinds, with vastly different consequences. Does it make sense to blend all corrupt actions into a single bowl of mush and to compare which countries have more mush?
The idea that corruption comes in distinct varieties is not new, 3 but qualitative typologies have not influenced the way corruption is conventionally measured and thus conceptualized around the world—as a one-dimensional problem. The most prominent global index of corruption is the Corruption Perception Index (CPI), released annually by Transparency International (TI). Others include the World Bank’s Control of Corruption Index (part of the Worldwide Governance Index) and indices created by business consultancies for country risk assessments. All of these indicators assign a single corruption score to each country, ranging from 0 to 100. Poor countries consistently rank at the bottom while wealthy countries are always at the top. 4
How corruption is measured is no mere technical issue—it profoundly shapes the way we understand and fight the problem. 5 Because bundled indices are widely used in statistical analyses, they have narrowed the focus of discussion to how the aggregated quantity of corruption matters, at the expense of understanding the quality of corruption and its effects. In fact, rich countries may not always have less corruption than poor countries; rather, their corruption manifests differently, usually involving quid pro quo and in legalized, institutionalized ways (White 2011; Whyte 2015; Lessig 2018) .
This review article serves two purposes. First, it introduces a framework for...