Citizen and Elite Perceptions of Corruption: Insights into the Global Opinion Process

Abstract Previous articles have analyzed the relationships between standardized measures of corruption and mean perceptions of corruption in various nations (Rusciano, F. L. 2013. “International’s Index of Corruption and Global Survey Results.” Studies of Changing Societies: Corruption Studies 2 (8): 4–12.; Rusciano, F. L. 2014. “Corruption in World Opinion.” In Corruption in the Contemporary World: Theory, Practice, and Hotspots, edited by J. Mendilow, and I. Pelig. Lanham: Lexington Books; Rusciano, F. L. 2016. “Are Democracies Less Corrupt than Other Systems?” In Corruption & Governmental Legitimacy: A Twentieth-First Perspective, edited by J. Mendilow, and I. Pelig. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield). It was discovered that relationships exist between two indices of global corruption that Transparency International creates annually: the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB). The former bases its ratings of corruption in various nations upon surveys primarily of elites and includes a score and an international ranking. The latter is an international survey of citizens’ perceptions of corruption in their own countries. This article explores the relationships between these two indices over time, asking the following questions: (1) Are there factors that explain the changes in a nation’s ranking on the CPI over time? (2) Are there factors that explain the changes in mean citizen perceptions in the GCB over time? (3) Are there relationships between the changes in the CPI and the GCB over time? (4) If a relationship does exist between changes in the two measures over time, are their factors which explain why the two indices covary? This article will address these questions methodologically, and then discuss the implications for international corruption studies and more generally, global opinion theory.