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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter December 22, 2018

Sounding the Alarm: The Political Economy of Whistleblowing in the US Security State

  • Christopher J. Coyne EMAIL logo , Nathan Goodman and Abigail R. Hall

Abstract

What role do whistleblowers play in democratic politics? This paper answers this question by analyzing the political economy of whistleblowing within democratic political institutions. Democratic politics is characterized by numerous principal-agent problems creating significant space for opportunism. Whistleblowers help to resolve these principal-agent problems through the revelation of information regarding abuses of power. These revelations can take place internally, by taking advantage of channels to report abuse, or externally, by publicly revealing information. The latter is especially important where internal mechanisms for reporting opportunism are lacking. Whistleblowing in the US national security state is presented to illustrate this logic.

JEL Classification: D73; H11; H56

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Published Online: 2018-12-22

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