Political Corruption
Jimmer Young
Zsuzsa Maygar
Political Science 6
17 March 2014
Corruption Research Project Throughout the world, a fundamental truth that must be acknowledged is that our governments are plagued by corruption. This corruption is a pervasive force firmly entrenched across all societies. With that being said, not all governments were created equal. Corruption manifests itself in a multitude of manners causing some countries to be more corrupted than others. The chief focus of this paper is to examine corruption across the world and analyze the factors that create this issue. Using an array of data analysis techniques I will attempt to investigate governments across the world, and provide insight into the political and economic aspects of corruption. Primarily, it is important to examine corruption in the world and how it differs from country to country. In order to do so, I will utilize the TI scale. Ranging from zero to ten, this scale is a metric that measures the extent of public sector corruption in countries. A score of ten indicates the least amount of corruption while a score of zero indicates the most amount of corruption. To provide a benchmark, the United States registers a 7.3 on the TI scale and Pakistan has a score of 2.8. Denmark and Finland prove to be the least corrupt countries with scores above 9 whereas Iraq and Haiti appear to be the most corrupt countries, registering less than 2 on the TI scale. Consistent with the extreme range of the least and most corrupt countries, there is an extensive amount of variance amongst countries in between as well. Countries throughout the world register scores across all intervals of the TI scale. However, separating these governments by region provides perhaps the most blatant display of disparity in corruption. North America and Western Europe are clearly the least corrupt regions with average TI scores of over 7. Conversely, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are the most corrupt areas. They
Zsuzsa Maygar
Political Science 6
17 March 2014
Corruption Research Project Throughout the world, a fundamental truth that must be acknowledged is that our governments are plagued by corruption. This corruption is a pervasive force firmly entrenched across all societies. With that being said, not all governments were created equal. Corruption manifests itself in a multitude of manners causing some countries to be more corrupted than others. The chief focus of this paper is to examine corruption across the world and analyze the factors that create this issue. Using an array of data analysis techniques I will attempt to investigate governments across the world, and provide insight into the political and economic aspects of corruption. Primarily, it is important to examine corruption in the world and how it differs from country to country. In order to do so, I will utilize the TI scale. Ranging from zero to ten, this scale is a metric that measures the extent of public sector corruption in countries. A score of ten indicates the least amount of corruption while a score of zero indicates the most amount of corruption. To provide a benchmark, the United States registers a 7.3 on the TI scale and Pakistan has a score of 2.8. Denmark and Finland prove to be the least corrupt countries with scores above 9 whereas Iraq and Haiti appear to be the most corrupt countries, registering less than 2 on the TI scale. Consistent with the extreme range of the least and most corrupt countries, there is an extensive amount of variance amongst countries in between as well. Countries throughout the world register scores across all intervals of the TI scale. However, separating these governments by region provides perhaps the most blatant display of disparity in corruption. North America and Western Europe are clearly the least corrupt regions with average TI scores of over 7. Conversely, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East are the most corrupt areas. They