HONESTLY, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Azam Baki’s supposed criticism of the annual findings of the Transparency International corruption perception index is nothing new.

The index has courted controversies for some years now.

Professor Paul Heywood, who is Sir Francis Hill Professor of European Politics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, has argued in an article with Staffan Andersson, that the index is open to criticism on several grounds: definition problems, perception bias, false accuracy, a flawed statistical model, and a failure to capture long-term trends (The Politics of Perception: Use and Abuse of Transparency International’s Approach to Measuring Corruption, Political Studies 2009;57(4):746-767).

As Azam rightly alluded, perceptions do not necessarily reflect reality. According to Heywood, there is in fact no shortage of evidence that there is often a striking mismatch between perception and experience, at least where corruption is concerned.

The index is a composite, so what does this mean?

It means data are drawn from externally conducted polls and surveys and scaled into one index. The data are collected by independent institutions, which are non-profit organisations and consultancies (See Tina Søreide’s critical assessment of corruption indices, 2006).

Respondents to the surveys are so-called “country experts”, but are usually based outside the country in question.

Respondents also include business executives. Heywood is critical of these respondents’ view of corruption, which tended to focus on bribery (and bribe-takers) when corruption involves much more than just paying bribes.

“The index struggles to distinguish not just between types of corruption, but also their impact and severity,” writes the learned don.

So yes, the index does not measure what the people think about corruption, but what some people think.

However, to be fair, Transparency International, which publishes the index annually, acknowledges that it is not presented as true facts about the actual levels of corruption.

To its credit also, TI provides a detailed account of where its data comes from as well as how it uses it, and this is accessible via TI’s own website.

Now, the World Bank also has what it calls the worldwide governance indicators, which report on six broad dimensions of governance, one of which is control of corruption.

This is part of its efforts to estimate the quality of governance.

Control of corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests.

The World Bank’s approach to estimating corruption is said to be similar to the methodology TI applies to make their ranking.

Several of the sources are the same. The two indices correlate well. Both share the objectives of raising awareness, to enable statistical research to understand and better confront the problem, and to encourage governments in their anti-corruption efforts.

Why corruption indices based on perceptions?

The simple answer is: it is very difficult – almost an impossibility – to get truly fact-based data on corrupt activities.

Data on corruption will usually have limitations since the people involved seldom will speak out about their practice.

Thus, the use of perceptions as a guide. Positive perceptions drive confidence, which in turn can drive investment.

On the other hand, negative perceptions erode confidence and divert investment into other territories or sectors (See Imelda Dunlop: Why perceptions matter in the fight against corruption).

So, let’s take the positives, and not the negatives, from the index. As Heywood himself acknowledges, the CPI has stimulated much important academic research on the issue.

Yet more than that, it has also generated significant media attention and helped galvanise international anti-corruption initiatives across a host of national governments and international organisations.

The index is now the established go-to source for those wanting to know about levels of corruption across the world. Despite criticisms against it, it should be the benchmark indicator to work towards, and provide the inspiration for improvement.

On this note, it does not matter that the index is perception- and not fact-based. – July 23, 2022.

* Hafiz Hassan reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.