Recurring Tensions between Secrecy and Democracy: Arguments about the Security Service in the Dutch Parliament, 1975–1995

There is a recurring tension between secrecy and democracy. This article analyzes the continually ambiguous relations between intelligence and security agencies and their parliamentary principals. I present a novel conceptual framework to analyze political relations influenced by secrecy. I draw on Albert Hirschman's concepts of exit, voice and loyalty and Max Weber's ideal types of the ethics of conviction and responsibility. The focus is a case study of the Dutch parliament and Security Service between 1975 and 1995. The analysis demonstrates how parliament can deal constructively with the secret services. This depends both on party-political responses to secrecy and strategic responses on the part of the secret services to deteriorating relationships with parliament.     

The Judicial Role in Defining National Security and Access to Information in South Africa

This article argues that judicial and other institutions concerned with legal interpretation are playing an increasing role in regulating and defining the concept of national security for South Africa, particularly in the realm of national security information. Part I surveys the post-apartheid evolution of accountability of South Africa’s national security agencies with particular attention to the treatment of national security information. Starting from a low base, intelligence agencies in South Africa have become more accountable, in part through the greater degree of access to national security information. Part II portrays the placement of access to national security information within South Africa’s legislative framework, taking into account the keys laws underpinning both secrecy and disclosure regulation. Here, with no definition of national security on the secrecy side, it is on the disclosure side of South Africa’s legislative framework that the judiciary and other legal actors are crafting an operative definition of national security. Part III covers three recent developments, arguing that they demonstrate the increasingly important regulatory role played by the judiciary and other legal institutions. These include two key Constitutional Court decisions and an ongoing legislative reform effort.     

The economy of secrecy: security,information control,and EU‒US relations

Abstract

This article develops an ‘economy of secrecy’ as a framework to understand how secrecy regulates interstate relations and to explicate why states react differently to breaches of secrecy. Drawing upon Simmel, the article argues that secrecy shapes interstate relations by tuning the ratio of ‘knowledge’ and ‘ignorance’. Furthermore, while the economy of secrecy acknowledges the existence of many types of secret, it emphasises their common underlying mechanisms, namely: secrecy as a field of power, secrecy as a field of performance, and secrecy as a normative terrain. Finally, the economy of secrecy is agnostic with regard to the moral character of promoting secrecy. In order to substantiate the argument, the article examines three recent iterations of how secrecy has disrupted EU?US relations: extraordinary renditions, WikiLeaks, and Snowden’s revelations. In addition to showcasing how the economy of secrecy operates, these examples contribute to our understanding of how secrecy affects information flow and dissemination in world politics.     

Secrecy in Europe

Abstract

This article introduces a collection of papers devoted to the study of secrecy in European politics across a range of EU and national settings and policy domains. Academic interest in secret politics – those aspects of public activity intentionally concealed from the public eye – and the governance of secrecy – the political processes and regulatory frameworks governing secret keeping – is growing. This interest reflects technological, social and political developments that appear to signal the end of privacy and the rapid expansion of political secrecy in European multi-level settings. As a consequence, the tensions between democratic accountability, with its transparency requirements, and political secrecy, which is typically justified on grounds of effectiveness of state action, have become more marked and more politicised. Engaging with these developments, the contributions to this collection draw on actor- and interest-centred perspectives that focus on actors’ motivations in secret politics; institutional perspectives that focus on contestation over secrecy norms; and organisational perspectives that emphasise the diversity of secrecy cultures. Further research will benefit from paying special attention to a diverse range of inter-institutional and inter-organisational secrecy settings; to political contestation over secrecy and the regulatory regimes that govern it; and to the refashioning of public-private secrecy architectures.     

Second order secrecy and Europe’s legality mosaics

Abstract

In today’s information society the citizen is ever more visible to government and to private companies while paradoxically government itself becomes ever more secret. This asymmetry is not caused by secrecy implying deliberate or intentional concealment of information. Rather, it results from systems of secrets held by remote or non-visible public and private actors, having been put together in an invisible manner. Second order secrecy is enhanced in the EU by the composite character of EU administration. In the EU it is the courts ? and not the legislature or the administration ? that are playing an active role in addressing bits of the transparency paradox for the citizen from the perspective of legality and the rule of law. Three different aspects of EU governance are explored from the legal perspective: terrorist blacklists, interoperable security administration and mandatory data retention and transfer.     

Ambient accountability: intelligence services in Europe and the decline of state secrecy

Abstract

In the 1990s, judgments in the European Court of Human Rights concerning state surveillance forced many West European countries to introduce new parliamentary bodies and formal systems for accountability. Promising both greater transparency and lawful intelligence, these frameworks were then energetically rolled out to Central and Eastern Europe. Although officials boasted about their effectiveness, these formal accountability mechanisms have failed to identify serious abuses over the last decade. Moreover, the security regime in much of Central Europe still remains largely unreconstructed. The article argues that a robust culture of accountability cannot be conjured into existence merely by introducing new laws and regulations, or indeed by the increasing tide of media revelations about intelligence. However, it suggests that we are now seeing the rise of a more complex pattern of ‘ambient accountability’ which is at last challenging the secret state across Europe.     

Spies and scholars in the United States: winds of ambivalence in the groves of academe

Spies and scholars in the United States have had a close, largely hidden, relationship. Both professions are in the business of information acquisition. Spies, though, work for the government, while the allegiance of most scholars is to independent research and teaching. Moreover, spy organizations view students as potential hires; in contrast, scholars are likely to see students as young charges placed in their hands to educate and prepare for lives of consequence. One school of thought argues that, since spies and scholars are both citizens, they should work together in partnership: sharing knowledge to improve the intelligence product, training and recruiting students, warning of radical activities on campus. A second school counters that the university is meant to be a pure and open place, dedicated to unbiased learning and free of government ties – especially entanglements with secret agencies. Campuses can find themselves torn between the two schools, caught up in a swirl of practical and moral issues that lead to a sense of ambivalence about the proper relationship between the academy and a nation’s secret services.     

Secrecy jurisdictions and economic development in Africa: the role of sovereign spaces of exception in producing private wealth and public poverty

Abstract

This paper reviews the scope and function of secrecy jurisdictions and includes new research data on their extensive use by development finance institutions in delivering official development assistance. In order to establish what these empirical data mean in terms of economic development, the paper builds a theoretical model of secrecy jurisdictions as constructed spaces of exception and exemption. It then reviews how different economic paradigms explain, analyse and assign normative values to secrecy jurisdictions/tax havens, noting that the neoliberal account proffers ideological assumptions which cannot be empirically verified. This paper argues that the most robust evidence available indicates that secrecy jurisdictions lower ‘onshore’ rewards to national stakeholders, and critically shrink the fiscal base required for sustainable economic development. Further, the paper argues that the extensive use of secrecy jurisdictions by development finance institutions sponsors an elite financial class in recipient countries, but otherwise undermines broad-based development embedded in economic justice.     

Counter-Terrorism,Security and Intelligence in the EU: Governance Challenges for Collection,Exchange and Analysis

In this article we seek to address the emerging role of the European Union (EU) as a security and intelligence actor from the perspective of counter-terrorism. Intelligence as a process and product has been strongly promoted by the EU as a useful and necessary tool in the fight against terrorism, radicalization, organized crime and public order problems. A range of agencies has been established that collect, analyze and operationalize intelligence in view of strategically defined security threats. Examples are Europol and Frontex. This article makes an inventory of their roles and competences in the field of intelligence and looks at the list of instruments that encourage the sharing of intelligence between different law enforcement and security agencies. Moreover, it is argued in this article that as intelligence becomes more hybrid and as the EU only holds light powers of oversight on ownership and integrity of data, considerable governance challenges lurk around the corner. As ‘intelligence’ is usually a complex and sensitive product, it often travels outside formal bureaucratic channels, which undermines accountability and transparency of where, how and for what purpose the intelligence was gathered.     

Against Humanitarian Impunity: Rethinking Responsibility for Displacement and Disaster in Northern Uganda

Abstract

Given that humanitarian organizations can often be responsible for enabling, prolonging or intensifying violence and conflict through their interventions into war zones, it is important that these organizations, despite their presumed neutrality and beneficence, be held accountable for the deleterious consequences of their actions. The case of northern Uganda will be used to demonstrate how humanitarian agencies have made possible the government's counterinsurgency, including its policy of mass forced displacement and internment, which has led to a vast humanitarian crisis. The Ugandan government policy will be assessed as a war crime, making aid agencies accessories to this crime. This case study is used as an example to highlight that processes which demand the post-conflict accountability of those responsible for violence may be dramatically incomplete, and unjust, if they do not include the humanitarian agencies. In conclusion it will be suggested that if humanitarian organizations built popular accountability mechanisms into their daily operations this might prevent them from being complicit with egregious violence in the first place.     

Shared secrecy in a digital age and a transnational world

ABSTRACT

This article examines the notion of shared secrets and the procedures by which secrecy is not the opposite of exchange of information, but the restriction of it to a certain ‘circle’ of people and the maintenance of others in ignorance. It creates corridors depending on the objectives of secret information, the persons having access, and the knowledge of this access by other people. Shared secrecy has been considered as an exception to common practice, but it has changed in scale with digitization and transnationalization of information, especially when suspicion is becoming used in statistical terms for prevention purposes.     

The private safety net: The role of charitable organizations in the lives of the poor

Abstract

As welfare reform unfolds, nonprofit social service agencies will increasingly be called upon to help fill the gap between what unskilled and semiskilled mothers can earn in the low‐wage labor market and what they need to meet their monthly expenses. This article draws on in‐depth interviews with low‐income single mothers and multiyear observational studies of two nonprofit social service agencies.

Using these data, the authors show what kinds of resources these agencies provide low‐income single mothers, how mothers mobilize the resources available, to what degree agencies actually contribute to mothers’ cash and in‐kind resources, how agencies distribute their resources, and what effect agencies’ distribution practices have on these women. The analysis shows that although nonprofit social service agencies are a crucial part of many low‐income mothers’ economic survival strategies, they cannot come close to substituting for the eroding public safety net.     

Political accountability,fiscal conditions and local government performance—cross‐sectional evidence from Indonesia

Why are some local governments more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning governments be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This article contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralisation and local governance. It shows–both theoretically and empirically–that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non‐compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behaviour and improve performance. Using a cross‐sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision‐making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Harry Howe Ransom and American intelligence studies

In this interview Harry Howe Ransom, a leading American scholar of intelligence studies over the past 50 years, discusses how he entered the field and his views regarding some key intelligence topics. Foremost on his research agenda has been the study of whether in democratic societies secret agencies can operate side-by-side with an otherwise open government without violating basic civil liberties – the difficult balancing act between the need for security, on the one hand, and the cherished value of liberty, on the other. He has also been a leading critic of intelligence politicization, noting in this interview that there is a tendency for intelligence systems to provide information they think their top bosses want to hear, and for the top bosses – more often than not – to do what they wish in spite of intelligence to the contrary. Professor Ransom began his research into intelligence as a young political scientist at Harvard University and continued this work throughout his subsequent distinguished career at Vanderbilt University and into his retirement years.     

US counterterrorism intelligence cooperation with the developing world and its limits

The US struggle against global terrorist groups depends heavily on intelligence cooperation, particularly with developing world countries that are autocratic. This dependence creates many problems. Autocratic allies often have politicized security institutions to prevent a coup and maintain the regime in power. Services will be reluctant to cooperate on areas of high regime sensitivity. Internal communication and information sharing is poor, and security services are often pitted against one another. In addition, the regimes often lack democratic legitimacy, corruption flourishes by design, and many senior leaders are chosen for loyalty, not competence. American influence will be limited, and at times providing fewer resources may gain more influence than providing more assistance.     

The challenge ahead: the state agenda for the coming years

The mid-1990s promise to be extremely challenging years as state leaders and institutions struggle to bring accountability and predictability back into their political systems. Faced with continuing budgets troubles, increasing demands for services and a shift of responsibility from the federal to the state level, the American states will be hard pressed to satisfy constituent needs or improve state services. However, the tough times may result in long-term improvement in state government, as administrators streamline agencies, legislators trim inefficient or redundant programs and state leaders generally seek new and cost effective solutions to social and economic problems.     

An Evaluation of Local Government Websites in New Zealand

Abstract

The study assesses the effectiveness of New Zealand local government Websites in providing equitable and appropriate access to government information. All local government Websites that could be identified were evaluated using 37 criteria, and visitors to approximately half of these sites were surveyed to determine their perceptions of the effectiveness of the sites. Results show that although there is a good range of information provided on the better sites, some smaller regional or district councils sites provide little in the way of basic information to their citizens. The study also found a limited range of transactional services available on New Zealand local government Websites, and a widespread lack of disabled-enabled access to sites, along with poor provision for user privacy and security. User comments focused on the need for more information and more up-to-date information to be provided, and better search facilities on sites. Although over 90% of users approached a particular site seeking specific information, less than half were able to find the information they sought. Significant indigenous and ethnic minority groups were underrepresented among users. The study concludes that there is room for considerable improvement in the use of the Web as a primary communication and transaction channel within the context of the government's vision for extending e-government in New Zealand to local government and Other agencies.     

WHAT SHAPES CITIZENS' EVALUATIONS OF THEIR PUBLIC OFFICIALS' ACCOUNTABILITY? EVIDENCE FROM LOCAL ETHIOPIA

In this article, we study which institutional factors shape citizens' views of the local accountability of their public officials. Our departing assumption is that evaluations of local accountability reflect not only citizens' poltical attitudes and beliefs but also whether local institutions contribute to an environment of mutual trust, accountability and ultimately democratic legitimacy. Combining public opinion data from a large‐N citizen survey (N = 10 651) with contextual information for 63 local governments in Ethiopia, we look at access to information, participatory planning and the publicness of basic services as potential predictors of citizens' evaluations of local public officials. Our findings suggest that local context matters. Jurisdictions that provide access to information on political decision making are perceived to have more accountable officials. Moreover, when local governments provide public fora that facilitate citizens' stakes in local planning processes, it positively affects citizens' evaluations of the accountability of their officials. Our study adds to the empirical literatrure by showing that establishing local institutions that can foster citizen–government relations at the local level through inclusive processes is crucial for improving public perceptions of accountability. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Political secrecy in Europe: crisis management and crisis exploitation

Abstract

This article theorises the relationship of crisis and political secrecy in European public policy. Combining the literatures on crisis management and securitisation, it introduces two distinct types of crisis-related secrecy. (1) Reactive secrecy denotes the deliberate concealment of information from the public with the aim of reducing immediate negative crisis consequences. It presents itself as a functional necessity of crisis management. (2) Active secrecy is about substantive or procedural secrecy employed by authority-holders to implement their interests with fewer restraints. Here, secrecy is an instrument of crisis exploitation, reducing obstacles to extraordinary measures. This distinction is based on an understanding of authority-holders as simultaneous legitimacy- and discretion-seekers whose secrecy politics depend on the constraints and opportunities presented by crises. In order to illustrate active and reactive secrecy, the article uses examples from the euro crisis (Eurogroup summitry, ECB sovereign bond purchases) and the security crisis after 9/11 (terror lists).     

Institutionalizing Peace: Power Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management

This article examines how power-sharing institutions might best be designed to stabilize the transition to enduring peace among former adversaries following the negotiated settlement of civil wars. We identify four different forms of power sharing based on whether the intent of the policy is to share or divide power among rivals along its political, territorial, military, or economic dimension. Employing the statistical methodology of survival analysis to examine the 38 civil wars resolved via the process of negotiations between 1945 and 1998, we find that the more dimensions of power sharing among former combatants specified in a peace agreement the higher is the likelihood that peace will endure. We suggest that this relationship obtains because of the unique capacity of power-sharing institutions to foster a sense of security among former enemies and encourage conditions conducive to a self-enforcing peace.