The Perception of Corruption

Corruption and corruption perception can be considered as cultural phenomena because they depend on how a society understands the rules and what constitutes a deviation. Indeed, it does not depend only on societies but also on personal values and moral vies. While a person would never pay a bribe someone else may pay it due to consider this action as justifiable. This disposition to pay is likely to be positively correlated by people’s perception of corruption. High levels of corruption perception could have more devastating effects than corruption itself; it generates a ‘‘culture of distrust’’ towards some institutions and may create a cultural tradition of gift giving and hence, raising corruption. Therefore, it means that one should seek not only what there is in common but also emphasize the many relevant differences in politics and cultures. This study aims to assess the foundations of corruption perception while focusing on its commonalities and differences across societies. Even when corruption perception may strongly differ from the current level of corruption, the latter influences the former. Hence, high levels of corruption perception are enough to cause negative effects in the economy (the growth of institutional instability and the deterioration of the relationships among individuals, institutions and states). Moreover, since the definition of corruption depends on social and cultural factors, the same is true for corruption perception. Therefore, the present research aims to find an answer to: (1) what are the individual characteristics that shape corruption perception?; (2) how important is the incidence of the country of residence in determining corruption perception?; and (3) is there a relationship between macro-economic performance of a country and corruption perception? We analyze the foundations of corruption perception in a cross-country perspective by using the module on Citizenship of the 2004 survey carried out by the International Social Survey Program (ISSP).