Transparency International is a respected organization and there’s nothing wrong with a sample size of 1000. I’ve seen worse.
That said, this appears to be the first year they are conducting this particular survey. The US leg was run by Leger USA, which runs online surveys. That sounds problematic to me. I don’t know how they create their sample, but their website allows you to sign up and be shuttled to a survey: win prizes! :dubious: Most of the countries used other methodologies.
FWIW, the question wording follows:
Q7. a. in the past 12 months, have you
or anyone living in your household had a
contact or contacts with one of the following
[inSertCateGorY name1–8]?
1– Education system
2– Judicial system
3– Medical and health services
4– Police
5– Registry and permit services
6– Utilities
7– Tax
8– Land services
Q7. b. if yes to Q7a, in your contact or
contacts have you or anyone living in your
household paid a bribe in any form in the
past 12 months?
yes/no
Q8. What was the most common reason for
paying the bribe/bribes? please give only
one answer.
1– As a gift, or to express gratitude
2– To get a cheaper service
3– To speed things up
4– It was the only way to obtain a service
TI pdf here: http://www.transparency.org/gcb2013/report
“The full results at individual respondent level are available free of charge on request from Transparency International.”
#3 (medical and health services) to a large extent are not government services in the US, and I wonder if the term in #8 (land services) is unambigous to US respondents as referring to some king of government services as opposed to the guy who mows your lawn.
Unfortunately the German site of Transparency International does not have the German-language questionnaire for comparison.
Define bribe. I am a small business owner. I give away a ton of services to local cops. I tell them it is in appreciation for their service to the community. I tell them I appreciate their keeping an eye on my business when they drive past (no local police force where the building is).
Over the years I’ve gotten mostly warnings for speeding, expired vehicle inspection, etc.
Yes, you are guilty of bribery, and the casualness with which you toss it off is repellent.
However, I am not sure I should reconsider my skepticism. 7% of the US population is 21 million,
and there are ~15 million self-employed in the country, so even assuming every small business
owners in the country paid bribes would not get us to 7%. On the other hand, the question ought
not be limited to the self-employed. On another other hand it should be limited to adults, so the
issue could obviously use more sophisticated study.
PS a bribe is pay for extra or for preferential treatment.
I’m guessing free cups of coffee to cops on duty (as many convenience stores provide) counts under their methodology as well.
The wording probably went something like “Have you ever given a gift, freebie or emolument to a public official, employee of the local, state or federal government in their job capacity?”
That opens the door to all sorts of not really corrupt behaviors like donating to the Police & Fire Ball, or presents to teachers, or anything that shows appreciation without expecting anything in return.
Well there’s a big chunk of your answer right there I’d expect. The US jails a lot of people, and our penal system is hardly a model of model behavior. So depending on where you asked the question, you might be in an area where an individual history jail time is fairly normal. Doesn’t seem so unreasonable to believe a good portion of those who did time might have offered some item of value to their guards in exchange for some favor.
Who and where you ask really matters. I think you could ask the 500 people who work in my office building the same question and you’d get a response of well below 1%, and a good chunk of those will have been tourists trying to get out of trouble in Mexico.
Dis is a pretty liddle bizniss I got here, eh officer? It’d be a piddy if somethin was ta happen to it, eh officer? Coffie? Ya want some sugars wit dat?
I have not had a ticket since 1985, and I was stopped since then, oh, four times
dead-to-rights drunk and they let me go (two road blocks, once for driving too slow,
once for exiting a parking lot over the sidewalk; passed either two or three sobriety tests).
The key is to be polite, and it does not hurt to practice the sobriety test.
Come on colonial. Nobody likes to whip out the tu quoque that often because it’s as lame as using a titty twister in a bar fight, but free services in an unspoken exchange for cops continuing to do their job counts as repellant bribery but you using your devastating wiles to get out of clear infractions of the law is ok? You fail to see why kayaker might at least see fit to have a little fun at your expense? Pots and kettles at best, old bean.
Yeah, I think you’re’ right. That explains it. There’s also the occ fuck-up that mis-reads the question or checks the wrong box.
There’s no evidence at all that it’s Americans paying American officials.
Other than “Man arrested for attempting to bribe official’ I have never heard of such a thing being commonly practiced. I have never paid nor heard of anyone paying a bribe, other than “la Mordita” in Mexico. Thus, I guess I paid a “bribe”.
I give my postman a fairly nice Xmas gift, a Sees gift Cert every year. I do not consider this a ‘bribe” but I guess by a strained interpretation of the survey it could be.
I would guess that a lot of people misunderstood the question. Possibly a lot of people don’t have a clear understanding of what the word “bribe” means and answered “yes” thinking that normal payments to government agencies count.
I’m not a survey taker, but my job does require me to ask questions of people over the phone. A big problem is that a lot of people listen to the beginning of the question, think that they understand it when they don’t, stop listening to the question, and give an answer which makes no sense because they were not paying careful attention.
It’s a bit like that old riddle where you ask people “If a plane crashes on the border of the U.S. and Mexico, where would one bury the survivors?” A large percentage of people don’t really process the word “survivors” because they assume the question is referring to people who were killed in the plane crash.
In a similar way, I would guess that a lot of people listening to the question don’t really process the word “bribe.” They don’t have a clear understanding of the word and assume it means “payment” based on the context.
Tu quoque? My last post was ironic and the one before was a serious observation, namely,
that it is not necessary to bribe policemen in order to obtain lenient treatment. I might have
added three other violations of mine (80 in a 60, malfunctioning brake lights and lane change
without signalling) for which I was stopped, guilty but not drunk, and let off. Repeat: be polite.
Yes.
Being polite is not “wiley.” It is the only smart way to act during conversation with a police officer.
But just to be clear about it I was guilty of highly irresponsible behavior, I could have killed someone,
and I deserved to be penalized to the full extent of the law. Admitting so does not excuse me,
but it does not excuse someone else guilty of another crime, either.
You are the only one failing to see anything, as in I might want to have a little fun of my own
by deflecting it right back at him.
