The 2008 Grand Corruption Watch List includes Montenegro

After its sovereignty was restored in 2006, Montenegro continues to face deep challenges with its overall governance and anti-corruption system. Extremely weak regulations undercut effective oversight of state-owned enterprises, police work is hampered by the politicization of the law enforcement agency, and ineffective whistle-blowing protections in the public and private sector are among the most notable problems. In addition, executive accountability is rated as very weak largely because basic conflicts of interest safeguards do not exist or are ineffective. "Executive [branch officials]," as our lead researcher observes, "frequently do not provide any explanations [for their policy decisions] and even try to hide decisions of the government."

The Global Integrity Report is a tool for understanding governance and anti-corruption mechanisms at the national level. Written by local researchers and journalists, the Report is characterized by an innovative, award-winning research methodology; a robust peer review process; and start-to-finish transparency.

Montenegro

Beginning in 2008, Global Integrity began looking for possible triggers of "grand corruption" in the countries assessed in the Global Integrity Report — countries where certain key anti-corruption safeguards were so weak that the risks of large-scale theft of public resources was greater than in most countries. We looked in our data for three red flags: extremely poor conflicts of interest safeguards in government, weak oversight over large state-owned enterprises, and poor or non-existent controls over the flow of money into the political process. Our rationale was simple: "follow the money" from commercial and special interests to politicians (through political contributions), and then assess whether those officials were sufficiently constrained by conflicts of interest regulations to effectively regulate the large state-owned enterprises whose revenue everyone is after. If those data (our Government Accountability, State-Owned Enterprises, and Political Financing categories) were all "Very Weak" (below 60), those countries were placed on the Watch List.

Being placed on the Watch List does not necessarily mean that grand corruption and looting of public resources will always take place in the country, but rather that the risks may be significantly higher than in most countries.
The 2008 Grand Corruption Watch List includes Montenegro

Integrity Indicators Scorecard – Overall Rating: VERY WEAK

Civil Society, Public Information and Media WEAK (66)
Elections WEAK (68)
Government Accountability VERY WEAK (54)
Administration and Civil Service VERY WEAK (37)
Oversight and Regulation VERY WEAK (55)
Anti-corruption and rule of Law VERY WEAK (56)

Methodology Overview:

Unlike most governance and corruption indicators, the Global Integrity Report mobilizes a highly qualified network of in-country researchers and journalists to generate quantitative data and qualitative reporting on the health of a country's anti-corruption framework. Each country assessment contained in the Global Integrity Report comprises two core elements: a qualitative Reporter's Notebook and a quantitative Integrity Indicators scorecard, the data from which is aggregated and used to generate the cross-country Global Integrity Index.

An Integrity Indicators scorecard assesses the existence, effectiveness, and citizen access to key governance and anti-corruption mechanisms through more than 300 actionable indicators. It examines issues such as transparency of the public procurement process, media freedom, asset disclosure requirements, and conflicts of interest regulations. Scorecards take into account both existing legal measures on the books and de facto realities of practical implementation in each country. They are scored by a lead in-country researcher and blindly reviewed by a panel of peer reviewers, a mix of other in-country experts as well as outside experts. Reporter's Notebooks are reported and written by in-country journalists and blindly reviewed by the same peer review panel.