2007 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

Country Facts: Statistical context for each country.

The United States has a generally strong anti-corruption and governance framework, through troubling exceptions exist, contributing to recent high-level lobbying and corruption scandals. Official secrecy is increasing. Lobbyists exploit loopholes in campaign finance regulations. The United States lacks a true ombudsman; instead a collection of oversight agencies, few of them truly independent, monitor different aspects of governance. The Inspectors General (IG), a key element of this framework, has received considerable political pressure, and IG appointments often go to party loyalists. In the civil service, political appointments made by the president without congressional approval have increased 33 percent between 2000 and 2005 (FEMA leadership during Hurricane Katrina was an example of these appointments at work).