State Secrecy and Democratic Theory.

This paper addresses a significant flaw in democratic theory, which assumes that citizens can combat the abuse of executive power via standard mechanisms of oversight - elections, public opinion and deliberation. It examines how the institution of state secrecy can obstruct the functioning of these standard mechanisms and analyzes why alternative mechanisms of oversight proposed by contemporary democratic theorists - including transparency, mediation and retrospection - prove inadequate. The paper then identifies circumvention (or 'leaking' to the news media) as the mechanism that democracies actually rely on to combat the abuse of state secrecy and explains why the reliance of democratic oversight on this mechanism is problematic. In particular, it suggests that the efficacy of democratic oversight in this setting depends in a significant way on the role of private institutions and personal virtues. If correct, this assessment invites democratic theory to cultivate a relationship with theoretical approaches that can account for the importance of these institutions and virtues. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]