Well, the best case in point in that regard is having a finance minister with a well-known past of money laundering (Schäuble) and a former, well renowned, Chancellor valuing his back-room dealings more than his duty to the country (Kohl's Ehrenwort).
Like many other German corruption scandals, these were never properly investigated/charged. With time people simply forget about this kind of stuff, but it happened and it very likely still happens because getting caught before didn't have any real consequences for them, so why would they stop?
> All countries are corrupt to some degree, but degrees do vary.
Indeed, but the practices of corruption also vary, often dictated by culture, so how does one really "measure corruption" in such a way that it's actually comparable? Imho that's quite a difficult, if not impossible, task because it involves a lot of subjective value judgments.
On that I agree completely. :) Lists, scores and rankings might be useful for generating political pressure but they’re measuring the unmeasurable, for practical scenarios. I also agree they are probably culturally biased, as I think you might be implying.
Like many other German corruption scandals, these were never properly investigated/charged. With time people simply forget about this kind of stuff, but it happened and it very likely still happens because getting caught before didn't have any real consequences for them, so why would they stop?
> All countries are corrupt to some degree, but degrees do vary.
Indeed, but the practices of corruption also vary, often dictated by culture, so how does one really "measure corruption" in such a way that it's actually comparable? Imho that's quite a difficult, if not impossible, task because it involves a lot of subjective value judgments.