Mapping Colombian Citizens’ Views Regarding Ordinary Corruption: Threat, Bribery, and the Illicit Sharing of Confidential Information

A few studies conducted in France, Latin America, China and Sub-Saharan Africa have examined the extent to which specific behaviors by politicians, state officials, professionals or simple citizens were considered by the public either as corrupt/intolerable or acceptable/tolerable. These studies have shown a great diversity of positions among participants, ranging from “zero tolerability” to “non-zero tolerability”, to high tolerance to favoritism, and to complete tolerability. The present study analyzed Colombian lay persons’ views as a function of three separate factors characterizing acts of corruption: (a) the current status or position in society of the person who behaved in a corrupt way (politician, judge, entrepreneur or ordinary citizen), (b) the motive behind the act of corruption (nepotism or monetary gain), and (c) the means used for obtaining the underserved benefit (threatening the person, bribery or illicitly sharing of confidential information). As expected, four qualitatively different perspectives were identified. The first one (60 % of the participants) was the expected Zero Tolerance view because all acceptability ratings were extremely low. The second one (32 %) was called Never Very Tolerable because ratings, although always low, varied as a function of the means used: Threat and bribery were considered as more intolerable than use of information. The third one (7 %) was called Depends on Means because the ratings were affected by the means used to a larger extent than in the preceding case. The fourth one (1 %) was called Always Tolerable because in all cases, the ratings were high. In no cases did acceptability depend much on the status of the person performing the corrupt act or of the motives behind the act. Although only a small minority of participants agreed with the last two views, it is probably enough to create a climate of suspicion in the country.