Government corrupt, run by narrow interests, Israelis say

A huge majority of Israelis believes the government is controlled by narrow interests, and that corruption is a significant problem in the country’s public service, an international survey revealed Tuesday.

Asked “To what extent is this country’s government run by a few big entities acting in their own best interests?” 73 percent of Israeli respondents to Transparency International’s 2013 Global Corruption Barometer answered either “to a large extent” (61 percent) or “entirely” (11%).

The figure is the second-highest among OECD countries, behind only Greece, where 83% said the government was run by narrow interests, and well ahead of the global average of 54%. Italy was ranked better than Israel, at 70%, the US came in at 64%, and France and Germany were at 55% and 57%, respectively. At the top of the list were Switzerland and Norway, at 19% and 5%.

The study, which combined surveys of 114,000 respondents in 107 countries, is not an objective measure of corruption, but rather gauged citizens’ perception of corruption in their country. “It addresses people’s direct experiences with bribery and details their views on corruption in the main institutions in their countries,” the report explained.

The Israeli part of the survey was conducted by Tel Aviv-based Brandman Research, and surveyed 1,004 Israelis online.

Half of Israelis (47%) said corruption had increased either “a lot” (30%) or “a little” (17%) over the past two years, while just 15% said it had decreased. Fully 81% said corruption was either a “serious problem” (52%) or “a problem” (29%) in the country’s public sector. Just 5% said it was “not really a problem.”

Israel’s political parties and religious bodies were the institutions most often called corrupt by Israelis. Seventy-nine percent of Israelis said the country’s political parties were corrupt, followed by 73% who said the same of religious bodies. The best-performing public institutions in the survey were Israel’s universities (23%) and the IDF (21%).

Only 10% said the country’s efforts to combat corruption are effective.

Political parties fared the worst among public institutions around the world. In almost half of the countries surveyed (51 out of 107), political parties topped the list of institutions most often seen as corrupt by respondents.

When it comes to their national religious institutions, Israelis are among the most critical people in the world. With 73% of Israelis saying the country’s religious institutions were either “corrupt” or “extremely corrupt,” Israel comes in 3rd among 107 countries surveyed in terms of the public perception of corruption in religious institutions. Only Sudan (79%) and Japan (74%) had higher figures.

The survey also asked respondents how corrupt they believed the institutions to be on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is “not at all corrupt” and 5 is “extremely corrupt.” Israel’s religious institutions scored 4.1, tied with Sudan and Japan for first place.

Worldwide, “more than one in two people (54%) think their government is largely or entirely run by groups acting in their own interests rather than for the benefit of the citizens,” the report noted.

More than a quarter of respondents in 107 countries surveyed (27%) said they had paid a bribe to a public official in the preceding 12 months. Fully 31% said they paid a bribe when they came into contact with police, and 24% when they came into contact with the judiciary.

Worldwide, 53% of respondents said corruption had increased in the past two years, compared to 29% who said it had remained at the same level and 18% who said it decreased.

Berlin-based Transparency International bills itself as an independent organization devoted to developing international standards and institutions for combating corruption.