South American countries have historically been characterized by weak democratic regimes, high levels of corruption and abuse of power, and generally low social and economic development. Nevertheless, citizens’ increasing demand for better public services have impelled governments to improve countries’ performance.

The literature highlights a framework of interrelationships between governance, corruption and social-economic development indicators. Using these indicators, this paper analyses how South American countries have evolved and how they compare to each other, regarding their performance in the past two decades. Applying multivariate statistical techniques, the research revealed important differences between countries, clustering together those with similar behavior trends and evidencing the best performers.

This research contributes in applying a methodology to identify the best performers according to nine worldwide indicators. This identification is important because top performers may serve as benchmarks for neighboring countries, pushing towards overall performance improvements, hence strengthening citizens’ confidence in their countries’ governments.