Assessing honesty: Finland ranked least corrupt country again

Transparency International has now ranked Finland as the world's least corrupt country for an amazing fifth time this decade. Virtual Finland tells why.

There's a problem in Finland of trying to express the same fact again and again using slightly different words without boring everyone.
The problem relates to the subject of corruption, the sort of corruption that takes the form of bribery, a branch of dishonesty that in the public sector here is almost non-existent. It remains absent year after year.

Evidence of this perennial void was provided again on November 6, 2006 by the Berlin-based anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI). Finland was ranked least corrupt among the 163 countries worldwide surveyed for TI's annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Sharing the top spot with Finland this time were Iceland and New Zealand.

Finland's high performance was one in a series. Back in 2000, TI placed this country first in the index. In 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 it was the same success story. In 2005, Finland dropped to second place. That seemed strange but given that the CPI is a composite index that draws on multiple expert opinion surveys, small fluctuations can be expected.

Finland's winning score this year was 9.6 points out of the maximum 10. Last year the second-place total was also 9.6, whilst the winner, Iceland, scored 9.7.

Legislation and ethicality

Why is it that Finland is ranked so high year after year? One reason is that in Finland corruption is covered by the Criminal Code. This provides for sanctions ranging from fines to imprisonment for up to four years depending on the seriousness of a proven case of corruption.

Other institutional weapons against corruption are the OECD Convention on Combating Corruption and the European Union's Convention on the Fight against Corruption, both of which Finland has signed.

Another factor that should be considered is the tradition of ethicality that exists in Finland and indeed in the other Nordic countries too. Denmark, Sweden and Norway were ranked fourth, sixth and eighth respectively in this year's CPI.

A telling indication from Transparency International's research is that in small-population, well ordered countries, such as Finland, corruption among officials and politicians is less likely to flourish than in poor and transitional nations.

The Nordic countries are advanced, affluent societies with systems of education and welfare, plus a history of hard work and social equality, that all militate against corruption. Finns often tell outsiders that their social conscience is influenced by protestant tenets that include respect for truth and honest toil.

Joe Brady/Virtual Finland
Published November 2006

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