Political secrecy in Europe: crisis management and crisis exploitation

Abstract

This article theorises the relationship of crisis and political secrecy in European public policy. Combining the literatures on crisis management and securitisation, it introduces two distinct types of crisis-related secrecy. (1) Reactive secrecy denotes the deliberate concealment of information from the public with the aim of reducing immediate negative crisis consequences. It presents itself as a functional necessity of crisis management. (2) Active secrecy is about substantive or procedural secrecy employed by authority-holders to implement their interests with fewer restraints. Here, secrecy is an instrument of crisis exploitation, reducing obstacles to extraordinary measures. This distinction is based on an understanding of authority-holders as simultaneous legitimacy- and discretion-seekers whose secrecy politics depend on the constraints and opportunities presented by crises. In order to illustrate active and reactive secrecy, the article uses examples from the euro crisis (Eurogroup summitry, ECB sovereign bond purchases) and the security crisis after 9/11 (terror lists).

Keywords:

• Authority
• crisis management
• EU
• public policy
• secrecy
• securitisation

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this Special Issue, Klaus Goetz and Berthold Rittberger, as well as Bernhard Zangl, for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. I am also grateful to the participants in the two preparatory workshops and the journal’s anonymous referees for their constructive feedback. Further thanks go to Felicitas Fritzsche, Hayam Mohseni, and Damla Keskekci for valuable research assistance.

Notes

1. For an alternative, more legal definition of international authority, see Hooghe and Marks (2015).

2. To be sure, neither reactive nor active secrecy will necessarily appear in their pure form empirically. It is always possible that actors have mixed motives and will partially see a need to manage and partially see an opportunity to exploit crises. Empirical analyses need to be attentive to the complexities raised by this non-exclusivity of action motives.

3. Much has been written about these elements of the euro crisis from different research perspectives. For one descriptive but insightful account, see Bastasin (2012). For an overview of the origins and impacts of the euro crisis, see the contributions in Caporaso and Rhodes (2016).

4. To be sure, this is not to say that the entire episode of Eurogroup crisis governance was only about crisis management, not exploitation, at all its levels. The attribute of reactivity here relates exclusively to the secrecy of deliberations.

5. Quoted in Valentina Pop, ‘Eurogroup Chief: “I’m for Secret, Dark Debates”’, euobserver, 21 April 2011, available at https://euobserver.com/economic/32222 (accessed 18 February 2017).

6. Marcus Walker et al., ‘On the Secret Committee to Save the Euro, a Dangerous Divide’, Wall Street Journal, 24 September 2010, available at https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703467004575464113605731560 (accessed 21 April 2017).

7. Xavier Musca, chairman of the Economic and Financial Committee in March 2009, quoted in ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ian Traynor, ‘Currency Crisis: The Euro’s Darkest Hour’, The Guardian, 10 February 2010, p. 24.

10. David Gow, ‘Europe in Crisis: EU’s Bazooka Bailout Fails to Launch with a Bang: A Welter of Words but Few Figures as Germany Seeks to Lower Expectations’, The Guardian, 27 October 2011, p. 6.

11. Quoted in Pop, ‘Eurogroup Chief: “I’m for Secret, Dark Debates”’.

12. Note, however, that this only holds to the extent that decision-makers actually did disclose relevant information in those deliberations. As described above, even the Council clearing house was often lacking background information, let alone evidence.