Corruption has been on the agenda of social scientists for a long time (Gardiner 1967; Heidenheimer 1970; Roebuck and Barker 1974). So far, the socio-scientific study of this phenomenon has remained the domain of political scientists and, more recently, of economists, and has experienced a boom since 1990. Recent paradigms in the study of corruption have included, for example, the new institutional economics perspective (Lambsdorff, Taube et al. 2006) and the legal anthropological perspective
(Nuijten and Anders 2007). Today, the sociological meaning of corruption continues to receive a less deal of attention. Through a literature review within the field of public opinion studies on corruption, we will present the added value of studying perception of corruption. We will discuss the theoretical models and methods used in these kinds of studies, together with their advantages and limitations. The main objective is to identify the areas which are most in need of further research, while arguing for the added value of studying perceptions of corruption at the individual and contextual levels.