The main objective in this essay is to propose a classification of the Mediterranean
countries in terms of their perceived corruption levels according
to key political, economic, and social factors. A multivariate analysis was
performed with the aim of classifying these countries according to the above
characteristics. Instead of providing deterministic approaches or econometric
models, a cluster analysis was selected as a common statistical procedure
suited to investigate similar patterns in countries described by several different
correlated and uncorrelated variables to provide an exploratory multidimensional
analysis of the dataset.