Transparency International, a non-governmental organization that publicizes official and corporate corruption, has released its Global Corruption Barometer 2013.
To create the barometer, Transparency International surveyed 114,000 respondents in 107 countries. One question these participants were asked was about whether corruption in their country had increased, decreased, or stayed the same in the past two years.
It's a depressing read. Here's the map which shows the countries where respondents believe corruption is has increased:
As you can see, it's a sea of red, with too many countries to list.
The U.S., almost all of Western Europe, all of South America, Russia, China, all believe that their countries have become more corrupt in the past two years.
Here's a map of the countries that believe corruption has stayed the same:
It's a very small crowd; Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Norway, Switzerland. Other than a cluster of countries known for their stable modern cultures (Switzerland, Japan, the Scandinavian nations), again not much ties them together.
Now, here's a map that shows the countries that believe corruption has decreased:
Just 11 countries are featured on this map (Azerbaijan, Belgium, Cambodia, Fiji, Georgia, Philippines, Rwanda, Serbia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Taiwan) and little seems to tie them together. A number have troubled modern histories, which could perhaps explain why things appear to be "getting better."
That's very disheartening.
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