How to Deal with Executive Secrecy? Opposition Perspectives and Practices Concerning a Democratic Conundrum

Government secrecy challenges parliament’s role in a democratic system by depriving it of information for decision-making and oversight. This problem becomes even more acute for opposition parties who lack informal access to ministerial bureaucracy, a channel of information that governing party MPs have at their disposal. The paper addresses secrecy as a political phenomenon and asks whether and how intentional non-information of parliament (and the public) may or may not be part of democratic politics. Secrecy permeates democratic politics and is in various cases deemed legitimate, i.e. for the security of state, practical reasons, etc. This paper will focus on whether (and under what circumstances) opposition parties are ready to accept executive secrecy based on an analysis of plenary debates (1998-2013) and expert interviews with Members of the German Bundestag. Both arenas that are empirically relevant for the legitimation of secrecy, legislation and parliamentary oversight, are subject to analysis. The following logics for opposition parties to agree to government secrecy are investigated and discussed: (1) necessity and state-political responsibility, (2) the expectation of being a governing party in the future, and (3) party politics. But, of course, opposition parties often regard secrecy as a problem: The paper therefore also traces notions of illegitimate secrecy and MPs’ coping strategies and practices in dealing with executive secrecy. Two empirical case studies serve as a basis for analysis. The cases of intelligence agencies (representing classic statehood and integrity of the state) and public private partnerships (illustrating dissolving statehood that incorporates private partners in the provision of public goods) show how opposition party MPs perceive and deal with executive secrecy and enable a comparison and aiming at identifying overarching logics as well as case-specificities that may arise from the interest constellations in each of the cases.