Sometimes concentrating on the positive can be more beneficial than focusing on the negatives. This is one of the thoughts behind the Integrity Indicators produced by the Global Integrity. According to their website
The Integrity Indicators are based on a simple yet revolutionary concept. Rather than trying to measure actual corruption, considered virtually impossible by experts, Global Integrity quantitatively measures the opposite of corruption, that is, the access that citizens and businesses have to a country’s government, their ability to monitor its behavior, and their ability to seek redress and advocate for better governance.
Much of what their index is all about is captured in “Measuring Public Integrity” by Marianne Camerer. The article is published in a recent Journal of Democracy produced by the National Endowment for Democracy.
Giving this more thought, it seems that efforts to measure corruption or integrity are bound to remain subjective and the results present their set of difficulties as well. I remember speaking with Dr. Devi Khechinashvili, President of the Georgian think tank Partnership for Social Initiative. We were talking about the TI’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and he asked: “What does it really mean if a country moves from a score 3.2 to a score 3.5, or if it moves from place #120 to place #110 in the rankings?” This, indeed, is a very good question. What does it really mean for an entrepreneur on a street trying to get a license or a citizen trying to get medical care?
While various measurements of corruption or governance can give one a feel for the general state of affairs in a particular country, they give little insight into the daily realities of doing business or dealing with bureaucrats. There is no macro substitute for knowledge of the country, the political and economic environment, and culture. The various measurements are useful, nonetheless, in highlighting the fact that good governance leads to better outcomes than bad governance, and less corruption is better from a development perspective than more corruption.
Published Date: August 23, 2006