> It ranks 107th out of 180 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, which is middling, but not especially bad, roughly comparable to Indonesia and Brazil.

I would still guess corruption is a major reason. Sometimes the way it’s measured and how it’s reported is not accurate. People internalize corrupt practices as normal and stop viewing it as corruption. A bribe is a gift, a nepotistic appointment is “taking care of one’s family”.

It also doesn’t always make sense to compare only corruption with other countries. Some may be more corrupt but they have enough positive factors that they develop better despite the corruption.

The Tranparency International's index is a horrible measure.

It's more dependent on the press reporting corruption than of any other factor, for the extent that it measures anything real it focuses exclusively on small scale corruption, and it incredibly biased by cultural factors.

It's a mistake to use it to compare one country with another, and it's a mistake to use it to spot trends in a single place. AFAIK, it's a mistake to use it.

It is notoriously difficult to gather accurate quantitative data on illegal or unethical activities. And the weightings in the index are rather arbitrary.

So corrupt even the reporting of corruption is corrupt?