Monday, December 16, 2013

Transparency International: distorted picture of the Arab world

Transparency International came up with its new survey of corruption around the world.  As you know, there is not a single index of anything around the world that has credibility.  It is like Hannah Arendt's criticisms of the effort to predict in political science.  Surveys of this kind are never credible or useful, if not outright damaging and ignorant.  I usually test such world survey or ranking by examining the section related to the Arab world.  So according to this year ranking, Qatar and UAE are the lest corrupt of the whole Arab world.  Just think about it: the two states where the state is a family are the least corrupt.  Worse, Saudi Arabia occupies a very high standing in this year's survey: ahead of most Arab countries.  This is about a country that gave whole new meaning to the world bribe.