Global Programme
on Measuring Corruption

The Global Programme for Measuring Corruption (‘GPMC’) recently held a ‘think-in’ in Vienna, to examine how we measure state capture.

State capture is a systematic type of corruption with the potential to transform the state or parts of it by shaping the rules of the game to benefit vested interests.

However, existing measures of corruption are inadequate to discern the prevalence of state capture from that of petty forms of corruption, suggesting that a change of course is needed if the aim is to produce appropriate policy responses to the phenomenon.

State capture may also have particularly long term and harmful consequences, so measuring it is important to ascertain its costs, as well as to assess trends and the effectiveness of remedial actions.

So the GPMC assembled a team of practitioners and academics to debate and discuss the topic over three days in Vienna, in May 2023.

In this podcast, the co-organisers of the ‘think-in’ Liz David-Barrett and Daniel Kaufmann reflect on what they learnt from the event, and how it could affect future work in the field.