Purpose of the Paper
Despite the triumph of transparency over the past two decades or so, the need for secrecy continues to persist. Even access to information laws acknowledge the role of secrecy through the inclusion of exemption provisions. The most salient exemption in FOI laws refers to the protection of information for the purpose of security considerations – henceforth described by the term national security secrecy.
The analysis sets out to disentangle the notion of national security secrecy by investigating both its conceptual underpinnings and their practical application in different governance contexts. We assume that rationales of national security do not exist in a vacuum, but are context dependent. Thus, non-disclosure on the basis of security considerations will differ between countries.
Contribution
While several studies compare the role of transparency in different national contexts, rationales and practices of secrecy are yet to be investigated in a comparative analysis. Conceptions of legitimate secrecy might differ between political systems but points to a lack of empirical research contrasting forms of legal secrecy (Curtin, 2014). This analysis takes a first step in that direction, exploring points of divergence and overlap between the construction of state secrecy in various contexts. The concluding discussion infers potential consequences for the study and implementation of transparency in different contexts, thus provoking questions for further research in the field.
Methods
The paper takes an interpretive approach to exploring the concept of national security secrecy. We will draw in frame analysis, specifically gearing towards the notion of policy frames (Rein/Schön, 1994). Frames are understood as implicit theories of the situation (van Hulst/ Yanow, 2016), thus the result of sense-making. A frame analysis appears particularly helpful for capture the various interpretations of ‘national security secrecy’, respecting the subjectivity of related justifications, while equally structuring these subjectivities for a more nuanced understanding.
In a first step, we map and analyze the various understandings of national security secrecy in the academic literature. Specifically, we examine the instrumental functions assigned to national security secrecy through a frame analysis. The identified frames will form the basis for our second step of analysis, which explores how security and secrecy conceptions collate in empirical cases. Based on the idea that national security secrecy is context dependent, we will compare frames of national security secrecy in legal provisions related to the management of official information (freedom of information acts, official secrecy acts, classification regimes etc.) For the purpose of the analysis, we will consider legislations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Findings
The review of the cases show notable differences between state’s approach to national security secrecy. Beyond that, the analysis illustrates that national security secrecy has no uniform meaning, not is it free from arbitrary utilisation. Rather, justifications for national security secrecy exist within a broader understanding of a country’s political culture.
