America ranks as the 16th least corrupt nation

A small improvement for America.
(Image credit: Photo by Transparency International)

The United States is tied with Austria for the 16th least corrupt nation worldwide, according to a new annual report from Transparency International. The top ten list is dominated by Scandinavian countries — Denmark, Finland, and Sweden take first, second, and third, respectively — and New Zealand, Singapore, and Canada are the only non-European nations included there.

The United States' score of 76 percent for 2015 marks a small improvement over the previous three years, when it earned 74 or 73 percent.

At the bottom of the list, "five of the 10 most corrupt countries also rank among the 10 least peaceful places in the world," the report notes, including Somalia and Afghanistan, both theaters of the war on terror.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.