For your reference this is the latest report of Transparency International on Corruption Perceptions Index. In the map provided there is an uncontested association between the north/west hemisphere and lack of tolerance to corruption. Is technology or culture the missing link?
https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017#table
I would suggest https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=CSAE2017&paper_id=48
I'm not aware of any such study, but I would be skeptical of any study that argued for a strong explicit global correlation between climate or physical geography factors and corruption at a national scale. Such an argument would seem to insinuate a sense of environmental determinism that may be patronizing and prejudicial.
I think corruption can be legitimately connected to poverty, large wealth inequality within nations (high Gini coefficients), limited education, and weak political and civil institutions. For those social factors, I think the causal connection is clearer. Post-colonial legacies also play a complex role in many parts of the world. Clearly, there are also corrupt governments and institutions who mismanage natural hazards and who use natural disasters as a "cover" for further exploitation.
I know his work is a bit controversial, but I do like some of Jared Diamond's famous books (such as Guns, Germs and Steel) that seek to explain why there may be connections between the physical environment and the accumulation of wealth and the history of colonization.
I agree with Asher's argument. I doubt there is a direct causal relationship between climate/physical geography and corruption. However, an indirect relationship might exist. For example, climate/physical geography is probably related to economic development for historical reasons, which in turn affects the incidence of corruption. If you want to study this topic quantitatively, you need to be careful in building your empirical model.
Exactly, I tink that he must investigate the economical level of devloppement explained by hisotical factors like colonisation and inegalities of exchanges beetwen North and South
I think if there is any linkage between climate change and corruption it would be an indirect pathway whereby human migration northward and to higher elevations, resisted by border security issues, feeds human trafficking to surmount transnational barriers. Climate change will also force impacted countries to shift their agricultural production mix, with unknown consequences for legal vs illicit crops. This could go either way in terms of levels of corruption.
Thank you all for your very interesting contributions.
Aside from economic and development contexts, it might be worthy to explore if the culture factor is affected by geography and climate. Let's not forget that these value systems transcend generations and are very difficult to change throughout a life span. National or regional cultures are defined by an evolutionary process integrating group values, language, traditions, history, geopolitics, development and future orientation. Corruption as a phenomenon can be positively or negatively associated to the above factors.
Yes, cultures are evolutionary and subject to group selection, while technology is revolutionary and can be highly disruptive to embedded value systems. It may be that corruption depends on sustaining asymmetric information and blocking transparency all of which are being undermined by advances in telecommunications and information technology.
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