Perceptions of CPI

Pakistan is once more convulsed with the age-old debate on corruption after recent publication of Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index” that downgraded the country by a considerable 16 points. Yet, the debate on corruption remains as ill-informed and misguided as it has always been.

For one, few seem to have any real understanding of what the Corruption Perceptions Index is or what it means. Generally speaking, many seem to view it as a measure of actual incidence of corruption at the juncture of state and society. Conversely, many – perhaps, a greater number than the former – seem to view the Index as something of a public opinion survey that gauges how Pakistani citizens view incidence of corruption in their country. Unfortunately, both sides are equally wrong.

Neither does Transparency International (TI) try to measure the actual incidence of corruption nor has it ever claimed that doing so is even possible. At the same time, the TI is also not a survey firm, enumerators of which go around interviewing thousands of citizens of any given country. Quite on the contrary, the Corruption Perceptions Index is an “index of indices”. That is to say, it draws its data from 13 different indices produced by 13 different institutions, including the World Bank, World Economic Forum, Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House, World Justice Project, and the Varieties of Democracy index, among others, aggregates these 13 individual rankings, and, then standardizes their rankings to generate one score.

Here, it is important to note that all the various institutions and indices that the Transparency International relies on strive to measure different things in different ways. For example, the World Bank in its “Country Policy and Institutional Assessment” report, uses its own staff to reflect on public sector and economic management in a country. The World Economic Forum creates its own Global Competitiveness Index after interviewing hundreds of global business executives on things like their experiences with paying bribes in a country for imports and exports. The Freedom House and Varieties of Democracy index attempt to measure quality of democracy and democratic institutions in a country. The World Justice Project tries to review whether members of a country’s executive, legislature, judiciary, military, et al, use public offices for private gain. In short, the sources of data are varied and complex, measure varied and complex aspects, and, in the end, present a varied and complex view of the overall situation in a country.

Therefore, the point here is that all debate on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) actually misses the point of the index. The point is not to provide an opposition with a cross to impale the government of the day on. As must have become clear by now, the CPI is everything except a measure of performance of a government or of its inability to constrain corruption. The point is also not to give a government – a temporal and mostly executive expression of a state – fireworks to light up its performance with. The point, really, can be understood as providing the entire gamut of socio-political and economic actors in any given society, with a broad overview of ‘where things stand’. The point, then, by extension, should become to galvanize multiple socio-political stakeholders into taking meaningful, multi-faceted, multi-sectoral action to address the complex, nuanced, hydra-headed challenge that corruption really is. That is to say, to galvanize government institutions into reviewing their anti-corruption tools and practices. To galvanize civil society into lobbying for structural change, greater emphasis on human rights, and safeguard of civil liberties, et al. To galvanize private businesses and citizens into demanding greater accountability and transparency, etc. In brief, the point of the CPI is really to better inform public discourse on corruption and galvanize action that is as nuanced and multi-layered as corruption is.

In Pakistan, the public discourse on corruption has come to centre on a handful of mega-scandals that mostly involve top-level government executives and political actors. More than others, it is the current ruling party, the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) that is responsible for this. This is because the PTI has built its political fortunes on basis of a monochromatic crusade against alleged corruption done by a small band of political actors. In other words, the PTI triggered a process of narrowing public discourse on corruption onto a few political actors to secure electoral gains. Today, the PTI has become the victim of the very process it triggered. Though, this is not to say that other political actors in society are not guilty of the above. Virtually every political actor active today has had a role to play. In fact, the very origins of public discourse on corruption are rooted in executive action against high-level corruption undertaken by public office holders and go back to 1949!

Anyway, the reality of Pakistan is that the actual public experience of corruption centres not on financial wrongdoings of national political elites, but on petty bribes the average citizen has to pay to gain access to basic necessities of life. Thus, the apparent disconnect between public discourse on corruption and the actual and lived public experience of corruption in the country should give one pause to think. That it does not, is a great misfortune.

Whereas it remains unrealistic to expect a political government and its political opposition to dissociate from the present structure of the corruption discourse in the short-term, the Transparency International report should provide at least the civil society, media and the general public the cause to pause and reflect on how corruption is being viewed, discussed and contested in Pakistan.

Finally, a word of advice to the government and the political opposition (since it remains possible that the opposition will one day be the government!): The experience of the present author with reviewing and critiquing international indices, and Pakistan’s rankings on them, shows that one major reason why Pakistan continues to fare badly on them is poor data flows. That is to say, data on any number of socio-economic indicators in Pakistan is hardly ever available in an adequate and wholesome manner. Since all global institutions and indices rely on mostly government-reported data for their assessments, Pakistan can do well to improve its data collection and reporting mechanisms. Simply providing accurate, reliable and, most importantly, up-to-date data to global institutions will go a long way in quickly bringing Pakistan’s rankings to where they should be, as opposed to where they are at the moment.

The writer is an academic, a political commentator and a freelance contributor.