[ddoice]

perception != reality

[gpvos]

But for the average person, perception does influence how likely they are themselves to take part in corruption, and that in turn does influence the total amount of corruption in a country. Actual corruption is very hard to measure, so perception of corruption is a reasonable thing to research since it is in many ways "the best you can do" to get some measure of actual corruption.

[bmacho]

There are reasons for why we can assume that the west is the least corrupt area of the whole world.

[hk__2]

Perception is a proxy for reality, given that you can’t measure the latter.