4. Multi-country Tools 4.1. Opinion Surveys 4.1.1 Corruption Victimization Scale Type of tool: Public experience survey Coverage: Bolivia. Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panamรก, Paraguay Source: The Latin American Public Opinion Project Funding: USAID Purpose: The purpose of the survey is to determine the characteristics of people most likely to have been victims of corruption by developing a measure of corruption experience at the individual level rather than aggregating corruption perceptions at the national level. A corruption victimization scale is also developed to examine the link between corruption and other variables. Methodology and implementation: The questions were inspired by crime-victimization surveys and built upon work done by the United Nations Centre for International Crime Prevention. The surveys were conducted for the first time between 1998-2002 in 6 countries in the region (Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Paraguay). Each sample has between 2,500 and 3,000 respondents, except for Paraguay, which included only 1,463. In 2004, the surveys were repeated, this time in nine countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, and Paraguay. The studies were conducted using face-to-face interviews with nationally representative samples of about 1,500 respondents in each country except Ecuador, where 3,000 people were interviewed. Since the Ecuador sample is twice as large as the others, the responses for this country are weighted by .5. Respondents were asked a series of questions recording their experience with corruption over the year immediately prior to the survey. The forms of corruption measured were selected on the basis of focus groups and are the ones found to be most commonly experienced in Latin America. The questions slightly varied between the country questionnaires. Based on the questions, an overall corruptionvictimization scale was developed. The scale was found to be reliable, with a Cronbach Alpha of around .75, depending on the country. Use and Impact: The tool is foremost designed to allow the comparison across nations in regard to the prevailing experience with (rather than perception of) corruption. By demonstrating where the problems are more serious and where more under control (disaggregating the survey by country and by sector), the results can help target public policy anti-corruption efforts in the countries. The tool has received significant press coverage in many of the countries included in the survey. Poverty and gender aspects (if applicable): Data obtained in the survey is disaggregated by income and gender. As the survey itself is designed in particular to analyze the characteristics of people victimized by corruption, a special focus lies on the analysis of the existence among and impact of corruption on poorer groups of society and across gender, and data is edited accordingly. It must be noted that in presenting data on differences across gender and income levels, the study maintains the separation into countries. Thus, poverty and gender issues can be compared across countries as well.
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