Global Corruption Test

The Global Corruption Test is grounded in one of the most influential and long-running research programs on governance: the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), produced annually by Transparency International since 1995. While the CPI does not measure corruption directly—because corruption is typically hidden and difficult to quantify—it aggregates expert assessments and business executive surveys to evaluate how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be. Over time, this approach has become the global standard for cross-national comparisons of public integrity.

At its core, the CPI synthesizes 13 independent data sources from 12 respected institutions, including the World Bank, African Development Bank, Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Economist Intelligence Unit, the World Economic Forum, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), and the World Justice Project. Each of these organizations collects information on governance, bribery, misuse of public office, state capture, nepotism, and the broader functioning of law and institutions. They use expert panels, executive surveys, and multi-year governance indicators that capture both the day-to-day experiences of business professionals and the systematic assessments of regional specialists.

Because these datasets differ in scale, methodology, and sample design, Transparency International applies a standard process of normalisation, converting all inputs onto a comparable 0–100 scale. The final CPI score is produced by averaging available data sources for each country, with higher scores indicating cleaner public sectors. Denmark, New Zealand, and Finland typically score near the top, while countries affected by conflict, weak institutions, or entrenched patronage systems often fall near the bottom. The CPI’s strength lies in its cross-validated methodology: no single survey determines a country’s score, and only sources that meet methodological transparency and statistical quality thresholds are included.

The Global Corruption Test adapts this research tradition for an individual-level integrity assessment. Instead of measuring public-sector corruption, the test translates the core behavioural dimensions reflected in CPI source data into micro-level attitude questions. These dimensions include:

• Willingness to bend rules for personal benefit
• Tolerance of bribery or “facilitation payments”
• Acceptance of nepotism or the use of personal connections
• Trust in public institutions
• Views on tax honesty and undeclared work
• Everyday norms regarding gifts, favours, and special treatment

Each question mirrors the themes commonly examined in CPI source surveys. For example, business-executive surveys regularly ask whether bribes are required to secure contracts or licences; governance datasets measure nepotism and favouritism in public hiring; rule-of-law indices survey the prevalence of informal payments in courts and policing. The test converts these societal indicators into personal moral-choice scenarios, enabling respondents to reflect on how their own attitudes align with global patterns of corruption tolerance.

The scoring system loosely maps personal integrity scores to national CPI ranges, not as a scientific assessment but as an interpretive tool. This allows users to see whether their responses resemble attitudes typical in countries with high, medium, or low perceived corruption. By linking individual psychology to global governance research, the test encourages reflection on norms, ethics, and the societal conditions that shape integrity.

In short, the Global Corruption Test draws on three decades of governance research, adapting the logic behind the CPI to help individuals explore where their personal moral compass fits within the global landscape of integrity.

References

• Transparency International. (2025). Corruption Perceptions Index 2024. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024
• World Population Review. (2025). Most corrupt countries 2025. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-corrupt-countries