Abstract
Executive secrecy is pervasive: Scandals about secret-keeping can be found in all kinds of policy fields and are regularly on the public agenda. The chapter makes a case for empirically investigating executive secrecy, particularly in democratic polities. While there is a body of literature dealing with the phenomenon in jurisprudence (focusing on the legality of secrecy), political science (for example discussing transgressions of secrecy rules, both in the form of over-classification and leaks) or sociology (pointing out how secrecy structures and shapes relationships and hierarchies), there remains a gap concerning how rules about secrecy are developed and justified. Why would parliaments allow for executive secrecy, abridging their rights, and what limits do they set? Moreover, this introduction presents Germany as a worthwhile case study and discusses two policy areas for analysis: Intelligence agency secrecy and Public–Private Partnership secrecy. Last but not least, the chapter sketches out the structure and main findings of the book.
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