Transparency International, the only global non-profit group dedicated to rooting out corruption, is in a curious position. The Berlin-based organisation is best-known as being the creator of the Corruption Perception Index, a ranking of countries according to how corrupt they are perceived to be. It is a measure of Transparency's success at holding up the theory and practice of corruption before the eyes of the world that such a piece of arcana is quoted and referenced ad infinitum. It is indeed a defining index of our times, a mirror for all things corruptible and morally corrosive.

It is also an index that is contentious and fraught with argument. It evokes strong reaction from actors as diverse as peeved prime ministers of countries that rank low on the list, outraged statisticians for whom the intangible world of bribery is scarcely one that can be reliably mapped. It is nonetheless standard equipment for CEOs who steer multi-billion euro investment decisions from one country to another based on whether it lies a few places above or below an acceptable level on the all-seeing index. Like the search engine Google's well-known experiments with maintaining social snapshots of our online world based on the most used search terms, the index provides a zeitgeist of the shadowy world of graft and pelf.

That is the aura surrounding the Corruption Perception Index - its reach and power is enormous. The truth however takes the shine off the edifice. That the index and Transparency International (TI) have become synonymous to the exclusion of much of the other good work that the non-profit does and initiates is neither what the organisation wanted, nor the intent of the Corruption Perception Index (CPI). It is threatening to become the tail that wags the dog, and while the Transparency universe - more than 85 chapters in over 90 countries - is concerned about the brand impelling its maker, the effort to have the CPI measured against the rest of the non-profit's work has not been helped by the emergence, in December 2004, of yet another instant measure, the Global Corruption Barometer.

This when there is already a healthy and growing criticism of the intent and methods of the index. Most of the most constructive comment comes from those familiar with Transparency's mission and who also see the need for a more catholic view of the phenomenology of corruption, with the inescapable truth that indices are essentially incapable of quantifying the tremendously varying experiences of corruption.

The luxury of the studied approach is not however available to one constituency that is amongst the primary consumers of the index: the media. For a constituency that is used to digesting bullet-point presentations and top ten QuikLists of everything from diapers to rogue states, the CPI is made-to-order for that single column down the side of the front page. And it is precisely because of its careful attention to how it can be consumed and re-exported that the index in fact trips spectacularly over itself.

What is being measured?

The core question is: what is being measured, by whom, for whom, and with whose participation? At the heart of the index, the barometer and other such instruments lies a subject both menacing and powerful. Yet like the measurement of poverty - whose eradication has become among the world's largest 'industries' - a measurement of corruption is elusive, for all the subject's ubiquity.

In the 10 editions of the index published by Transparency, that elusiveness has lain in wait for all those who make their way beneath the surface of the equations that support the CPI. In this zone, contradictions abound. Take one of the most apparent - whose perception is being deployed here, and therefore whose index? Transparency relies on 12 organisations which provide it what TI calls 'instruments' by which it means surveys, and these number 18 (to account for surveys from different years). The sources for the 2004 Corruption Perception Index are listed by TI as:

  • The World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey which polled "senior businesspeople")
  • The Center for International Earth Science Information Network of the Columbia University (the State Capacity Survey which polled "US-resident country experts")
  • The Economist Intelligence Unit (the Country Risk Service and Country Forecast which used "expert staff assessment")
  • Freedom House (the Nations In Transit report which used assessments by "US, regional and in-country experts")
  • Information International (the Survey of Middle Eastern Businesspeople which polled "senior businesspeople from Bahrain, Lebanon and the UAE")
  • The International Institute for Management Development (World Competitiveness Yearbook which surveyed "executives in top and middle management, domestic and international companies")
  • A "Multilateral Development Bank" ("experts within the bank were identified" for this survey)
  • The Merchant International Group (the Grey Area Dynamics report which relied on "expert staff and network of local correspondents")
  • The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (its Asian Intelligence Newsletter which polled "expatriate business executives")
  • Gallup International on behalf of TI (the corruption survey which polled "senior businesspeople from 15 emerging market economies")
  • The World Markets Research Centre (its Risk Ratings report relies on "expert staff assessment")
  • The World Economic Forum (its Global Competitiveness Report polled "senior business leaders, domestic and international companies")

Reliable analysis

These organisations and their clients are not however advocacy groups. For most, it is business risk that is their operational focus, and corruption is one among several factors (governance, rule of law, political risk, industry analysis, labour, cost of conducting business, intellectual property rights regime, for example) that is sought to be assessed.

These groups unambiguously explain their raisons d'tre. "Our mission is to provide executives with timely and reliable analysis for making successful global decisions," explains the Economist Intelligence Unit.

"Any time, and anywhere, our latest intelligence provides the knowledge you need to inform your strategy and support your business."

The World Markets Research Centre is similarly focused: "We help senior executives manage risk and evaluate opportunity created by change. Our analysis is relied upon by thousands of executives in hundreds of multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments across the world."

The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy surveys "over 1,000 senior expatriates living in Asia to obtain their perceptions of a range of critical subjective variables' while the Merchant International Group provides an "unique range of support services to corporates in non-domestic markets".

This then is the roll-call of those whose products determine where on the index the146 countries are ranked according to how corrupt they are. But that statement requires a qualifier, which Transparency makes a point of stressing - country number 146 is not the most corrupt country in the world; it is 'perceived' as the most corrupt country in the world.

Here is the single universal rider that Transparency is forced to employ to defend the provenance of its most influential 'instrument', and that it has to do so is an unfortunate commentary on the fact that such an ultimately flimsy index has become a benchmark for what has become a new and bewildering field of study - corruption and its methods. It is not a worthy benchmark, indeed the calls for reform of the measure began early in the life of the CPI and have grown over the years.

It is not worthy simply because its definition of corruption is a statistician's (and that of a businessperson willing to take calculated risks), but it is not a citizen's. The biases inherent in such an index - re-read the sources and who they polled for their numbers - are far too strong to reflect anything but the most skewed reality. Most important, this is a perception of corruption so narrow and so much an adjunct to the multinational worldview that it is utterly alien to the global citizen in whose name this exercise is being done. It is not merely to add to the anti-West rhetoric that the Saudi newspaper Arab News , in 1997 complained that corruption "is a hopelessly subjective concept... What is wrong about this particular report is that it adopts its own, culturally subjective, definition of corruption and then effectively condemns those who do not conform to it".

This was no doubt a confrontationist view and did little to understand or appreciate what Transparency and its index, flawed as it is, have contributed to the new field of study. Yet Transparency appears to have given insufficient consideration - and has yet to do so - to the cultural dimensions of its subject of study.

A certain reality

Even so, the advocacy is not sanguine about the substance and elements of its most celebrated creation. "One can't say that it is a perfect instrument," a TI spokesperson said in the non-profit's international secretariat in Berlin. "It's always hard to produce cross-country indicators and they all have weaknesses. But it is an instrument which is able to assess a basic level of corruption in a certain number of countries - it still captures a certain reality." TI points out that "confidential diagnostics" are still needed and that TI is working on these - at cross-country and national levels - to deepen the analysis.

That is far easier said than done, and TI's 'Framework Document 2004' which serves as a background paper to the 2004 CPI, while impressive with its statistical legerdemain, illustrates just how short such an index can sell a concept. The document is authored by Dr Johann Graf Lambsdorff, TI's chief of statistical work and a professor at Germany's Passau University.

Lambsdorff explains the core of the idea that is Transparency's CPI: "The CPI is a composite index, making use of surveys of businesspeople and assessments by country analysts. It consists of credible sources using diverse sampling frames and different methodologies. These perceptions enhance our understanding of real levels of corruption from one country to another... unbiased, hard data continue to be difficult to obtain and usually raise problematic questions with respect to validity."

Such a reading of the problem makes it difficult not to prosecute the non-profit for its reductionist stance. "Credible sources", "diverse sampling frames" and "different methodologies" do not coalesce, however artfully statistical methods are marshalled, into a reliable reading of the situation that is to be found on the ground in 146 countries, especially when it is largely "businesspeople" (including non-residents and expatriates) that are polled.

"Perceptions" are not a substitute for hard data and examples grounded in fact - which name names and assign numbers. That crucial step which requires a theoretical boundary to be crossed, from perception into practice, is what Transparency alas appears to shy away from. It is left, TI says, to the individual chapters and those they work with locally to pursue such an assignment, yet it is this crucial element that continues to be absent from Transparency's calculations for the CPI, and the index and our understanding of corruption is so much the poorer for it.

RAHUL GOSWAMI lives in Goa, India. A writer and editor, he works with community groups in India's North-East, and has been a full-time journalist in Singapore, the Middle East, and India.