Amid a rise in support for populist movements worldwide, the report from campaign group Transparency International (TI) found that "corruption and social inequality are indeed closely related and provide a source for popular discontent."
Using data from a variety of different sources to provide perceptions of the level of corruption in different countries, TI's Corruption Perceptions Index 2016 found correlations between countries with levels of inequality and perceived corruption problems — and concluded that this was laying the groundwork for populism.
OUT NOW: Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. More than 2/3 of countries score below 50. Check it out here: https://t.co/V3UTLQOuDF #cpi2016 pic.twitter.com/mM82LMcQ9w
— Transparency Int'l (@anticorruption) January 25, 2017
"In countries with populist or autocratic leaders, we often see democracies in decline and a disturbing pattern of attempts to crack down on civil society, limit press freedom and weaken the independence of the judiciary," TI chairman Jose Ugaz said.
'The Populists Aren't Doing Very Well'
However while populist movements in Europe, along with Donald Trump in the US, have campaigned on a pledge to fix corruption and so-called crooked elites, Ugaz said data showed that populist leaders often struggle to solve the issues they set out to fix.
"Instead of tackling crony capitalism, those leaders usually install even worse forms of corrupt systems," he added.
New report @anticorruption shows strong link between corruption
— Gwen van Eijk (@gwenvaneijk) January 25, 2017
and inequality & relevance for rise of populismhttps://t.co/rjqdMDazCj pic.twitter.com/pKjBZOq0gV
This sentiment was shared by TI's Advocacy Director, Casey Kelso, who told Sputnik that Hungary and Turkey were two examples of countries with populist governments who have dropped in the corruption rankings.
"You could look at Hungary and Turkey, which in the last years have seen the rise of autocratic leaders that started clamping down on civil society, which we feel provides transparency on political processes, presses [governments] and makes sure there's a strong democratic check on the presidency. Civil society and media then hold those in power to account, and in those two countries in particular we saw quite a drop in recent years," he said.
Not surprised that the biggest absolute setbacks in corruption perception among larger EMs are Brazil, Turkey and Hungary
— Anders Svendsen (@SvendsenAnders) January 27, 2016
"On the other hand Argentina, which just ousted a populist government, is starting to improve now and showed a statistically significant score rise," noting that "so far we're seeing that the populists aren't doing very well."
The corruption perceptions index found put Denmark and Sweden at the top of the list, followed by Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, while the US came in at 18th place.
