Perception of corruption: strengths and weaknesses of the most common method for measuring corruption

Corruption has succeeded in establishing itself as an issue in the public debate at a national and international level. The increased public awareness of corruption and the high level of interest in public debate have prompted a slew of questions about how to measure it. Quantifying a country’s levels of corruption has political and economic implications as well as consequences for public administrations’ ability to detect criminal infiltrations and adopt targeted law enforcement measures, resulting in reduced public spending (Vannucci 2012; Heywood 2014; Rose 2015). Because of the “hidden” nature of corruption, academics have turned to perception indicators to gauge the problem. Perception indicators, on the other hand, have been and continue to be accompanied by a slew of criticisms about their application. It began by discussing a new realism perspective in which “the end of the great narratives has produced a flattening between narrations (that is, representations, interpretations of the world) and reality (object, world, and data), and from this collapse an aberrant series of perceptions has derived” (Lorusso 2018, p. 84). Perception is the starting point for all interpretative activities. However, in this era, it is also frequently used to present reality narratively to public opinion, blurring, and virtually eliminating, the clear border between what is real and what is fiction. In this sense, even if they cannot correspond, reality and truth tend to overlap through perception. In fact, truth is a judgment (which may be attained through perception), whereas reality is unachievable (thus we try to obtain it through perception) (Lorusso 2018). At a time when corruption has emerged as a major topic of public debate, the line between reality and perception is becoming increasingly blurred. All metrics of the spread of corruption face a slew of harsh objections from the academic community and, as a result, from public opinion. The media and politicians continue to debate how much corruption exists in a country and if it is more or less than in other nations. So, after a brief introduction to the concept of corruption (Tanzi and Davoodi 1997; Rose-Ackerman 1999; Ledeneva 2009; Rothstein 2011) and the various approaches to measuring corruption (Vannucci 2012), this work focuses on the application of the concept of perception to corruption and its measurement. In particular, it attempts to systematize all of the virtues, weaknesses, and limitations of perception indicators. Regarding the last point, some of the main factors affecting the perception of corruption will be examined (Rose-Ackerman 1999; Montinola, Jackman 2002; Olken 2009; Charron 2016; Cabelkova, Hanousek 2004; Rose 2015; Rizzica, Tonello 2015; Mazzoni et al. 2017; Husted 1999; Barr, Serra 2010; La Porta et al. 1999; Fisman, Miguel 2007; Uslaner 2004; Banuri, Eckel 2012; Treisman 2000; Lambsdorff 2006; Melgar et al. 2010; Treisman 2000; Serra 2006). It has also been highlighted that all of the published studies have exclusively focused on one of the many aspects affecting perception and, more importantly, have frequently explored the topic of corruption in developing countries rather than in established democracies.