Domestic elite perceptions of British corruption

Perceptions of corruption are notoriously problematic indicators of levels of corruption.1 Whether or not perceptions of corruption are reliable indicators of levels of corruption in a particular country, the arguments expressed in defence of such perceptions are valuable gauges of political culture, as well as of the exportable power of such (to the extent that the perceptions are accepted and reproduced outside the UK). All too often, however, ‘culture’ has been used to explain the reason for high levels of corruption in less developed economies; ‘culture’ is what has often been presumed to make non-Western societies corrupt, and Britain non-corrupt, although it has been argued by others that the very meaning given to the notion of ‘corruption’ itself has been demonstrated to be historically and culturally contingent