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

Christopher Coyne, Goodman Nathan and Hall Abigail R.
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Goodman Nathan: Department of Economics, George Mason University, MSN 3G4, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
Hall Abigail R.: Department of Economics, The University of Tampa, 401 West Kennedy Blvd, Tampa, FL 33606, USA

Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, 2019, vol. 25, issue 1, 11

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.

Keywords: democratic politics; information asymmetries; whistleblowing; principal-agent problem; US national security state (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D73 H11 H56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1515/peps-2018-0024

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