Patrick,

Thank you for your attention to our proposal. I'm happy to provide additional information and address two of your concerns directly:
1) I'll explain the exact process of generating a score for a particular Integrity Indicator;
2) I'll address the assumptions that underpin our work.

1)

You asked about our methodology. I'm happy to report that this is entirely transparent, and is explained at length in a white paper ( http://www.globalintegrity.org/data/2006methodology.cfm ). This should provide the answers you seek, but for readers here, I'll address a few points directly. You asked how Integrity Indicator assessments are conducted, and how we select our team members. These are related questions, so I'll address them together by walking through the process for one of the roughly 12,000 data points we generated in 2006. All of the following information is published on our website ( www.globalintegrity.org ).

In the Philippines, our lead researcher is Dr. Mahar Mangahas, director of the Filipino organization Social Weather Stations ( http://www.sws.org.ph/ ). We worked with him in 2004, after specifically inviting him to participate. We initially selected him based on his independence; his impressive history as a governance researcher; and the recommendation of arguably the Philippines’ leading investigative journalist, Sheila Coronel. Ms. Coronel was head of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism ( http://www.pcij.org/ ), and someone we had personally worked with through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. This is fairly typical; we use personal networks extensively to find and vet candidates who share our commitment to accurate, independent research.

Dr. Mangahas then addressed each of the 295 Integrity Indicators for the Philippines, providing a score, qualitative commentary and an external reference. For instance, in Category 4: Civil Service and Administration, we ask if there is a law protecting whistleblowers (subsequent indicators, which I do not list here, examine whether the law works in practice):

41a: In law, civil servants who report cases of corruption, graft, abuse of power, or abuse of resources are protected from recrimination or other negative consequences.

For this indicator, Dr. Mangahas has two score options, which he reads before providing his score:

A YES score is earned if there are specific laws against recrimination against public sector whistleblowers. This may include prohibitions on termination, transfer, harassment or other consequences.

A NO score is earned if there are no legal protections for public-sector whistleblowers.

Dr. Mangahas provided the following answer:

Score: NO.
Comments: The fact that a Whistleblower bill is now pending in Congress indicates ongoing efforts to strengthen such protection.
References: Interview with Atty. Marlon Manuel, Executive Director of Alternative Legal Assistance Center (SALIGAN) Ateneo de Manila University, 2006.

This answer is then evaluated by Global Integrity to ensure it addresses the question as we intended; we discuss the answer further with the local researcher if clarification is needed. From there, each country report goes to a double-blind peer review process. In this case, the peer reviewers were Gemma Bagayaua, Vincent Lazatin, Anga Timilsina, and Alan Hicken, who represent a mix of other local researchers and journalists and international analysts with expertise in the Philippines. The peer reviewers supported Dr. Mangahas's score, and provided this additional commentary:

Peer Review Comments: There is no such law and a whistleblower protection bill is pending.
Peer Review Comments: Executive Order 464 requires heads of agencies and some government officials to secure approval from the president before testifying during Congressional investigations.

Peer review comments are attributed to the panel, rather than to individual authors to help encourage honest criticism. In some cases, peer reviewers will disagree with the lead researcher's assessment. This can cause us to adjust scores, or seek additional references. In some cases, peer reviewers will disagree with each other. In all cases, the peer review panel's critical perspectives are published alongside the scores. A read through an Integrity Scorecard can provide not only our final assessment, but also highlight what areas of the research are the most controversial, uncertain and likely to change over time. We fully understand the limits of quantitative data, and have produced a tremendous volume of qualitative commentary (more than 750,000 words in 2006) to add context to these numbers. We also publish narrative critiques by leading local journalists (like Ms. Coronel, mentioned earlier).

You can see the above exchange on our website ( http://tinyurl.com/2h3yky ). That process was repeated for each of the roughly 12,000 data points that make up the Global Integrity Report and the Global Integrity Index for 43 countries in 2006.

2)

Patrick's second critique addressed "the implicit assumption that formal structural ‘integrity’ factors determine levels of corruption." We'll go ahead and make that an explicit assumption: we believe that good governance matters when it comes to reducing corruption, though we agree it is not the only factor. We believe that transparency, accountability, and effective watchdog mechanisms have a positive effect on corruption and abuses of power. This assumption, rooted in academic literature and our experience, drives everything we do.

As Patrick points out, good governance is one input into a complex, opaque system of corruption (perception surveys measure one set of outputs). Patrick points out other inputs: ethnic makeup, economic conditions, and so on. These other inputs often feature in the journalistic components of the Global Integrity Report; we capture them in an ad hoc way qualitatively. The Integrity Indicators, which Patrick cited, address only good governance and anti-corruption mechanisms (defined broadly).

The Integrity Indicators are a focused, solution-oriented tool; we are engaging the part of the problem that governments, media, activists, and international bodies can most easily change. A new government can't change it's nation's demographics, but it can pass a Freedom of Information law and follow through to make sure it works in practice. We provide baseline information to give stakeholders a roadmap of transparent, discrete steps towards good governance, and we tell them exactly how they are doing on each of those issues. As we frequently say, we don't measure corruption; we measure one set of inputs to a highly complex and inherently opaque system.

Patrick, thank you again for the opportunity to address these issues; your critical feedback helps us sharpen our message and stay grounded. Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.

Best regards,

Jonathan Werve
Director of Operations, Global Integrity

Global Integrity :: Information on governance and corruption for global citizens.
http://www.globalintegrity.org

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Thanks for your note! We are cited frequently by journalists seeking to provide context to corruption scandals that break. Our reports allow journalists to place the scandal of the moment into a bigger picture of openness and government accountability.

Global Integrity research has been cited by at least 78 newspapers worldwide, many of them in the developing world. Newspapers without online editions are difficult to track, so it is likely that we are undercounting, but we don't know of any coverage in D.R. of Congo.

We're glad to hear that we are getting good word-of-mouth in your area. We've been very active in Sub-Saharan Africa and will continue expanding our efforts there.

Cheers,
Jonathan Werve
Director of Operations, Global Integrity

Global Integrity :: Independent Information on Governance and Corruption
http://www.globalintegrity.org

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