Conditions Under Which State Secrecy be Consistent with Democratic Governance - Essay Example

Conditions under Which Secrecy be Consistent with Democratic Governance U.S President, Abraham Lincoln, defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people and for the people”. Democracy is by far the most challenging form of government both for politicians and the people. The term ‘democracy’ is coined from the Greek language which means ‘rule by the people’. According to some great philosophers, the key elements of democracy include separation of powers, religious liberty, human and civil rights, freedom of opinion, good governance, general and equal rights to vote and so on. Thus, a democratic government is a form of governance in which the people are considered to be the primary source of political power. State secrecy refers to the keeping of state information confidential within state officials and high political office appointees but away from the general public due to some conditions (Born & Caparini,2013). Keeping state secrets has always been a part of democratic governance. State secrecy cannot be separated from democratic governance. For any government to function properly, efficiently and effectively, there is a great need for all political or public office appointees and holders to uphold state secrets. Consequently, all high political office appointees and holders (Ministers, Chief Justice, Diplomats, Speaker of Parliament, Parliamentarians, and Chief Executives etc.) take Oaths of Secrecy to the government and the state as a whole before assuming office (Sagar,2013). There are multiplicity of reasons that could make state secrecy consistent under democratic governance but prominent amongst them are as follows; Firstly, a very prominent factor under which state secrecy can be consistent is National Security. External aggressions such as wars and conflicts can be inflicted on a nation if its enemies choose to exploit her strengths and weaknesses. In that sense, essential information about the nation when let out to the general public, could be a negative action that will go a long way to militate against the developmental progress of the nation. Citizens of the state may panic or fear when very confidential secrets about the state are leaked. A typical example is the Boko Haram attack in Nigeria. When the leader of this dangerous Boko Haram group sends audio and visual notes to the Office of the President demanding for cash and other claims, it is kept confidential between state appointees and holders so as not to inflict fear in the citizens who usually are victims and sufferers in case of an attack (Maret,2011). State secrets must be kept so as to safeguard state security; hence measures are put in place to keep state affairs on the low. For instance, when the American government took out Saddam Hussein (5th president of Iraq) in December 2006, no citizen of both Iraq and America knew about it till the act was carried out. National security was taken into consideration since even after some weeks; the judge (Rauf Abdul Rahman) who passed the verdict was allegedly attacked in retaliation for the death of the martyr Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, one feature of democracy is open governance and involvement of the people. Therefore, with consistent state secrecy, the government is not democratic in any way. National security is not assured since citizens are curious and inquisitive to know what is going on in their state. Nevertheless, pandemonium breaks out when citizens finally know what was hidden from them (Born & Caparini,2013). Secondly, the existence of rule of law, which is another condition under which state secrecy, can be consistent under democratic governance. Supremacy of the constitution enables the secrecy of the state to be consistent. The highest laws of the land are not tampered with, irrespective of the political party in power. Therefore the constitution, which determines the secrecy of a state is not altered to suit the whims and caprices of any individual, hence, it ensures consistency. For instance, the constitutions of most democratic governments are written by some very few appointees and not the all the citizens of the state. And so state secrecy is essential in the decision-making process of many democratic governments. On the other hand, state secrecy is not at its peak with the rule of law since every political party that comes into power has the right to select its own political office appointees. Therefore, a lot of individuals join the big family as more and more political partiescome into power. A well effective police system is another prominent factor under which state secrecy can be consistent under democratic governance. A well and effective police system works on the platform of increasing state productivity, maintaining law and order making the state a secured and serene place to be. An effective police force or system works equally with any party that comes to power and do not use the patronage or spoils system; which is a system of recruiting personnel who are affiliated to the party in power. With an effective police system, the departments are not formed on the bases of party ticket. This therefore inhibits certain levels of bias; the absence of bias in a state makes the secrets of the state consistent. In addition, another prominent condition under which state secrecy can be consistent under democratic governance is economic stability. The systems that control the economy of the state benefit from state secrecy. Since citizens do not have an idea of the economic graph of the state, the high office appointees make decisions that will increase state and individual productivity but not only concentrate on one side. Economic growth is one advantage gained from the secrecy of the state. In that, without secrecy, state negotiations cannot be made on behalf of a nation to solicit assistance from another state. Therefore, this has gone a long way in helping in the growth of the economic sector, which happens after the negotiation. States come to an agreement and the state that was seeking for assistance would get its needs met. On the other hand, the donor nation feels very proud that it has given a helping hand to a developing state. With the help of the economic sector, the concerned nation develops, and when there is economic development, the state gets recognised both locally and internationally. The internal affairs of the nation are boosted and this goes a long way to bring about stability in that particular state. On the other side, productivity in a democratic government is at its peak when every other citizen is benefiting from it because as noted above, ‘the people are considered the primary source of political power’. Problems facing modern societies are complex and diverse and therefore require people and institutions with the requisite knowledge and experience to assist in formulating enduring policies without necessarily involving the whole population. Therefore state secrecy is important because only a portion of citizens who merit it, are aware of the state’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition, bureaucracy and public policy making in the state can also go a long way in making state secrecy consistent. Bureaucracy is an organization that is designed to carry out decisions of some other larger entity. It is made up of a group of individuals charged with the responsibility of carrying out the policies of some larger entity that cannot be managed using a single political office appointee. It is a practical necessity in complex modern societies that bureaucrats hold a meaningful policy making power with elected officials having little opportunity to influence policy outcomes. These bureaucrats have the technical how-dos to make policies suitable for meeting the needs and wants of almost all the citizens of the state. Therefore the citizens tend to be satisfied with the policies and do not go an extra mile of intruding in state affairs (Sagar,2013). The strong and proactive civil service is a necessary condition for the consistency of state secrets. The debate about the role of the civil service in dealing with development problems like unemployment, inequality and poverty is an ideological one. The democratic government usually uses the civil service as a tool for socio-economic development. The main function of the civil service is generally to assist the government in the formulations and implementation of government policies for the development of the state. This enables the civil service to be work consciously and keep the oath of secrecy that they took before starting work (Sagar,2013).The civil service is very proactive in the sense that they formulate and implement policies that go a long way in meeting the needs and wants of the citizens of the state. This function is carried out mainly through the sector ministries responsible for specific policy issues, manpower, and financial matters. For instance, in a democratic government such as Ghana, the civil service performs tasks such as; contributing to the consolidation of democracy and governance (political and bureaucratic accountability), preventing and discouraging the efforts of the private sector to interfere in state affairs and the supervision, coordination and monitoring of the activities of state technical departments in order to ensure the consistency of state secrets. There is also a strong and proactive attitude to work since there is the separation of powers in the civil service. Technical state office appointees are categorised in various departments, therefore there is secrecy in each department, which in the long run encourages the keeping of state secrets (Maret,2011). Recruitment in the civil service is done to suit the department or state sector one is being hired for. For instance, when recruiting personnel for jobs that involve keeping state secrets confidential and safe, the interviewers look out for interviewees who are introverts and reserved since these reserved type of people do not talk a lot and are capable of keeping state secrets safe and confidential. Extroverts talk a lot and people who talk a lot tend to say things unintentionally. A position like a state minister of finance should be issued to people who do not talk much since he or she cannot keep the financial affairs of the state confidential and this information is very vital to international enemies and public enemies of the state (Maret,2011). Another major condition under which state secrets can be consistent under democratic government is through conducting effective and efficient international diplomacy. Diplomacy is one of the central means used by countries to interact with one another. Diplomacy primarily means the practice and process of conducting negotiations, holding discussions and meetings between accredited representatives of countries and intergovernmental organizations. Those who engage in diplomacy are called diplomats.Diplomatic missions are a group of individuals from one country who work in another country on behalf of their country (Maret,2011). Diplomatic missions are typically called Embassies and High Commissions. For example, Ghana’s diplomatic mission in Canada is made up of the individuals who work in the Ghana’s High Commission in Canada. Embassies or High Commissions give information to their home governments. This information could range from political development (democracy, transparency in public management, human rights violation, corruption), economic development (per capita income, gross domestic product (GDP), private sector participation in the economy, interest rates and etc.) to social development (literacy and numeracy rates, access to quality healthcare and housing, road infrastructure, etc.). A number of countries require their diplomatic missions to submit such reports on regular basis to inform the policies of their governments. The effectiveness and efficiency of international diplomacy in making state secrecy consistent, lies in the limitation of these diplomatic missions to their generally known information and not into detail. State office appointees and personnel in charge are to make sure these diplomatic missions do not go beyond their boundaries in the interference of state affairs. This is because almost every other country has its diplomatic missions in other countries including state and public enemies. International diplomacy should be effectively and efficiently conducted so as to promote consistency in state secrecy of democratic governments. For example, there is peace between democratic governments due to liberal ideas but undemocratic countries with diplomatic missions in democratic countries may impose wars and other disagreements since they may be contradictory. In diplomacy, once a country declares that the envoys or diplomats from other countries are not welcomed, those countries often respond by declaring that some of their diplomats are also not welcome in their countries. For instance, during the reign of George W. Bush of the United States in 2006, Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, expelled a US diplomat (John Correa, a naval attaché to the US Embassy in Venezuela) and the US responded swiftly by declaring that Jeny Figueredo Fias (the chief of staff to the Venezuelan Ambassador in the US) was persona non grata and she was given 72 hours to leave the country (Maret,2011). Finally, the existence of globalization is also another factor under which state secrecy can be made consistent under democratic governance. With the existence of globalization, people are made aware of some or most of the developments in other countries. As a result of this, no country can claim to be doing things in secret. The knowledge of this by countries, allows the state departments, state office appointees and the three arms of government (the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary) to strengthen their confidentiality so as to keep state secrets from leaking. Globalization has led to the acquisition of general knowledge of the world through the Internet and technological advancements. The world is to some extent aware of some of the political, economic, cultural and social developments in many parts of the world. For example, some Canadians are aware of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as is the alleged genocide in Sudan. When terrorists attacked the United States in 2001 it took some few minutes and the news spread around the world. This will in the long run keep state departments and officials on their toes in order to keep state secrets confidential and safe from the outside world. For example, just recently some Turkish hackers were said to have hacked Ghanaian state websites. This has made the Ghanaian governments, state departments and countries within that sub-region to invest a lot in protecting their state secrets. It is quite difficult for a democratic state to be consistent with state secrecy since democracy is about public participation and involvement of the citizenry in state affairs and governance of the country, with globalization having made it difficult for a country to keep secrets though it is not entirely impossible. As stated in the paragraphs above, a state can be consistent with state secrecy if it is very conscious about its national security and safeguarding its national interest. State institutions and bureaucracy is also another reason why a democratic country can be consistent with state secrecy. Closely related to this is the separation of powers. Good and effective foreign policy also plays a role in the secrecy of a democratic government; this is where diplomacy falls under. High literacy rate too is a necessary condition for which state secrecy will be consistent in a democratic government. A well informed and educated government workforce is aware of globalization and the threat it poses and therefore takes pre-emptive measures to protect state secrets (Maret,2011). In conclusion, normally, there is so much information that is involved in running a country for any single individual to absorb and assimilate all of it. Thus, citizens must trust their leaders especially those that exposed to various national secrets, as well as those they delegate various tasks to. Such kind of trust is earned via a security clearance process as well as a clear demonstration of individual responsibility. Usually, national secrets have the ability to cause the country a lot of harm especially if the enemies of state choose to capitalize on the leaked information. Thus, it is the role of each citizen to be not only informed of national security but also offered a chance to voice his/her opinion via voting on issues of security that are general enough to be in the public limelight. Thus, national security needs a decisive and functional team capable of acting on public’s behalf. Members of such a team should be good stewards of public trust as well as protective of national secrets. Works Cited Born Hans, Caparini Marina. Democratic Control of Intelligence Services:Containing Rogue Elephants. New York: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Rahul, Sagar. Secrets and Leaks:The Dilemma of State Secrecy. New York: Princeton University Press, 2013. Susan, Maret. Government Secrecy. New York: Emarald Group Publishing, 2011. http://www.whatisdemocracy.net/ http://www.virginia.edu/cnsl/pdf/national-security-policy-process-2011.pdf Read More