Same goes for Sweden with their totally non-corrupt investigator who just happen to get a high paying job from one of the parties days after the case.

It's funny. I know of numerous cases of borderline corruption here. They may be legit, but they sure as hell run close to the line. I struggle to imaging what happens in a country considered to be 'actually corrupt'.

Same goes for Australia, there's a high level of corruption in the form of donations to politicians.

Theres no way to avoid the sort of "corruption" that you speak of - when an individual (or entity) has money, it can be translated to power thru the use of it.

The difference is that at least donations are (supposed to be?) listed and tracable, and can be scrutinized if necessary.

Compare it with the sort of corruptino you find in countries like india, and china, where you _have_ to give money to the official to get your paper signed to do somethign that ordinarily you should'nt have to (e.g., may be you'd like to open a car import/export business. you'd be paying quite a few visites to gov't officials with expensive gifts or unmarked bills).

That's an index of visible corruption.

Quibble: perceived corruption isn't the same as visible corruption, things that are disguised are visible, but one may not perceive them as the things they are, rather as the things they disguise themselves to be.

Takes a little bit of epistemology to make sure that what you think you perceive is in fact what is really going on (how do I know what I know?). Corruption may be going on all around people, but they see it as "business as usual" or it's built into the "lawful" system, so isn't perceived as corrupt (though it is visible).

Some people expect a certain amount of "low-level" (harmless?) corruption, so reserve their identification of corruption to particular visible or impactful events.

Well, "next to no corruption" is still within bounds...