Abstract
If the opposite of secrecy is revelation, then one would expect one of the most important leaks in history to have had a profound effect on the life of liberal democracy. Yet, according to one astute commentator on the WikiLeaks phenomenon, after WikiLeaks everything changed and nothing changed.1 This chapter examines the basis for this rather puzzling claim and in so doing uses the case of WikiLeaks to illuminate the status of secrets in early twenty-first-century political life.
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Notes
The influence of behaviourist psychology on economics should also be noted. For example, see G. A. Akerlof and R. J. Shiller, Animal Spirits — Why Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), pp. ix–x.
Also, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein’s Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2009).
See Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
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© 2014 Lawrence Quill
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Quill, L. (2014). Life after WikiLeaks. In: Secrets and Democracy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313010_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313010_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-34977-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-31301-0
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