Denunciatory technology: forging publics through populism and secrecy

This paper theorizes contemporary institutionalized forms of denunciation, or what I call ‘denunciatory technologies’. Denunciatory technologies are mechanisms that allow citizens to report one another to the state for a wide range of wrongdoing, such as welfare fraud. The scarce literature on such initiatives relies heavily on concepts of neoliberalism to explain their emergence and operation. I first argue that a focus on neoliberalism fails to recognize these technologies as a sophisticated type of statecraft that promotes public sensibilities. I then offer a more robust account of denunciatory technologies. Rather than relying on an analysis of neoliberalism, I argue that these technologies fuse the policing of political criminals like the ‘welfare cheat’ to the very notion of ‘public good’, and refract vertical populist energies back onto the population. I conclude that, through such technologies, publics become an integral tool in their own governance.