Having developed an account of the democratic legitimacy of executive secrecy, the project addresses two related issues.
First, the project examined the issue of democratic oversight of executive secrecy. This study involved, on the one hand, a critical discussion of the existing mechanisms of control and accountability and, on the other hand, it used an empirical case study to analyze the negotiation of secrecy rules in the parliament. The latter part of this study is based on interviews with MPs and an analysis of parliamentary debate. The output of this part of the project are: (a) journal articles; (b) doctoral dissertation titled "Enclosing Executive Secrecy: Arguments and Practices in the German Bundestag" (defended on 29/06/2021, Leiden University); (c) monograph "Secrecy and Democracy: A Philosophical Inquiry" (under contract with Routledge).
Second, the project addressed the use of secrecy in the legislative process arguing that a degree of secrecy in legislative process is justified in that it facilitates the decision-making processes. First, secrecy enables legislators to take the initiative. Second, secrecy facilitates compromise. Third, secrecy may expose legislative “capture” (in the legislative context secret voting may serve to reveal legislators’ true preferences. When paired sequentially with open voting, it may then shed light on the distorting influence of lobbyists, campaign donors, and interest groups). In keeping with the DoA, it is argued that accountability does not require a fully transparent legislative process. Contrary to conventional wisdom, accountability and transparency are not the sorts of goods we can simply maximize. Rather, we always need to tailor them by providing some substantive account of the basis on which the agent (lawmaker) is properly accountable to her principal (citizens). It is argued that legislators are properly assessed on the basis of their formal proposals, statements on the record, and binding votes. So long as these contributions are publicly accessible, secrecy cannot be regarded as rendering legislators unaccountable. The output of this part of the project are (a) journal articles and (b) doctoral dissertation titled "Enclosing Executive Secrecy: Arguments and Practices in the German Bundestag" (defended on 29/06/2021, Leiden University) and (c) monograph "Secrecy and Democracy: A Philosophical Inquiry" (under contract with Routledge).
Regarding the problem of unauthorized disclosures, the project will develop an account of the responsibility of the media for unauthorized disclosures. Philosophical discussions have focused mainly on the political and legal answerability of the leakers, with a special focus on civil servants. The answerability of the press has not yet been addressed in the literature. The project fills that gap. The output of this part of the project are (a) journal articles; (b) blogs and (c) monograph "The Ethics of Whistleblowing" (Routledge 2019).
