Article Entry
19 Nov 2009
Comments:2
Mapping of Corrupt Nations; U.S. Does Not Fare Very Well
Added by USGIF Category: Daily Intelligence Brief, General
Our reader may recall that we did a post a while back on the mapping of America’s sins. And, as expected, our nation was full of sinners. Now, we have come across study from Transparency International who has created a corruption index and map for gauging the corruption level of every nation. The big surprise is that the U.S. did not fare as well as other first world nations including Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and Ireland. According to Wired Magazines coverage of this index, the U.S. rated below these countries because of the influence of lobbying on our lawmaking and the ongoing controversy over how we’ve prosecuted the war on terror. You can read the Wired article here, as well as see the actual index here.
Tags: American's Sin, Corruption, Corruption Map, Lobbying, Transparency International, War on Terror
Lousy legend explaining this on their map. Sloppy work Transparency International!
Setting aside the many methodological and interpretational problems with this coffee-table “study of studies” (where would I start?), let’s just stick to the map:
Blue? For bad stuff? How about pink-to-red? More importantly, the scale in the legend is backward: On a map of corruption levels, the lowest corruption gets the highest score – wrong.