Declining indices – press freedom and corruption

This week there have been two releases of indices that tend to be followed in the international media, markets and other interested observers. Earlier this week, Reporters Without Borders released their 2009 Press Freedom Index. Transparency International has released its Global Corruption Report for 2008. It seems that Thailand is struggling on both counts.

Press Freedom Index: For Asia, RWB’s headline stories were about Fiji and Thailand. Here’s what was said about Thailand: “Political power grabs dealt press freedom a great disservice again this year. … In Thailand, the endless clashes between ‘yellow shirts’ and ‘red shirts’ had a very negative impact on the press’s ability to work. As a result, the kingdom is now 130th.”

That’s 130th in an index of 175 countries, declining from 124th the previous year and with its Index ballooning from 34.5 in 2008 to 44.0 in 2009 (lower numbers indicate greater press freedom).

In 2002, Thailand was 65th and in 2005 was 107th. Part of this decline reflects increasing numbers of countries brought into the Index, although the country rating went from 22.75 in 2002 to 28.0 in 2005 . As might be imagined, following the 2006 coup, Thailand’s ranking and index declined again, to 122 and 33.5 respectively. There was a precipitous decline in the 2007 index to 53.5.

So Thailand is doing better 2009 than it was in 2007, but things have deteriorated since 2002.

Some of the blogs have questioned this decline – there has been little mention of the RWB in the press in Thailand (is the latter indicative of what’s going on?). These blogs point to the fear that existed in the media under Thaksin. That is certainly true, but at the same time, that fear soon morphed into outright anger and attacks from the media that raised issues of fairness in the media itself. At the same time, there have been remarkable efforts to close, censor and control the “non-traditional” media such as the internet and community radio. It will be interesting to see how the clear anti-red shirt biases in the media will play out in the 2009 index.

Corruption Perception Index: TI’s index is often criticized because it is about perceptions rather than actual corruption. In addition, because it “ranks countries in terms of the degree to which businesspeople and country analysts perceive corruption to exist among public officials and politicians”, it leaves out all ideas regarding perception in business itself. It also has some strengths. As TI states: “The strength of the CPI lies in its combination of multiple data sources in a single index, so that erratic findings from one source can be balanced by at least two other sources. This reduces the probability of misrepresenting a country’s perceived level of corruption. Involving local businesspeople and country analysts alongside non-resident experts is also an advantage. It makes it possible to recognise the specificities of local customs through the views of local experts, while at the same time enhancing the consistency of judgment across countries by involving non-residents.”

How is Thailand doing? In 2008, Thailand ranked 84 (of 180), just above Albania and just below Saudi Arabia. Its Index was 3.5 (where 10 equals no perceived corruption). The previous year, Thailand was 93rd with an Index of 3.3. This means that Thailand’s ranking has gone up in 2008, but so has the Index. In other words, perception of corruption has increased. Back in 2000, Thailand had an Index of 3.2 and ranked 62nd (of 91 countries). In 2005, Thailand’s Index was down to 3.8 with a ranking of 60th of 159 countries.

The bottom line is that Thailand seems to have improved since its low in 2005, but is still down on 2000.

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