Survey research on corruption: challenges and advancements
The study of corruption has benefited significantly from the expansion of survey research and the availability of cross-national survey data. Survey methods and techniques have been used extensively to assess attitudes, perceptions, and self-reported experiences of corruption across different contexts, to gain knowledge of what corruption is in the eyes of the beholder, to provide proxy measurements of the phenomenon, and to understand how perception-based corruption influences a series of other social and political attitudes. Beyond the walls of academia, survey research on corruption has been used to raise awareness, to generate demand for reforms and inform policymaking. Notwithstanding its popularity among academics, practitioners, and activists, and the development of several cross-national specialised barometers, survey studies on corruption had hit a “plateau” by the end of the first decade of the millennium and are now facing a series of challenges. This chapter examines these challenges with the lenses of the potential advancements that can be reached through a combination of theoretical and empirical insights, offering researchers a framework to discern where survey research on corruption stands today and where it ought to be in the future.
Authors: Luís de Sousa and Gustavo Gouvêa Maciel
Year of publication: 2026