Secrecy and International Relations

Bibliographic Data

ID4932207
AuthorsDavid N Gibbs (University of Arizona), David Ν Gibbs (0000-0002-6596-8536, University of Arizona, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume32
Issue2
Pages213-228
Publication date1995-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Peace Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3433 • E-ISSN: 1460-3578
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022343395032002007
OpenAlexW2077631281
LanguageEN
Citations received32
References cited20

This article analyzes the question of information control and how it influences the conduct and the study of international relations. Three theories are advanced as possible explanations for secrecy: The first, the External Threat explanation, suggests that government secrecy is designed to protect sensitive information from external enemies. The second explanation, the Bureaucratic Politics explanation, views secrecy as a relatively unsystematic process that results from the (collectively) irrational features in any government bureaucracy. The third explanation, the Internal Threat approach, argues that government officials use secrecy to mislead the populations of their own countries. These three explanations are applied to a case study of US information policy with regard to the Congo Crisis of 1960-1. The article concludes that the Congo case tends to support the Internal Threat explanation of secrecy

Bureaucracy · Computer security · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Irrational number · Law and economics · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Process (computing) · Secrecy · Sociology · Computer Science · Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology