Wikileaks and accountability

Through the massive leaking of classified government documents, WikiLeaks has provoked a debate on the link between transparency and political accountability. The central issues of contention in this debate are the degree to which secrecy is compatible with democratic processes and whether WikiLeaks meets its own standard of transparency. This paper examines a narrower, though related, set of questions. At the conceptual level it explores the link between transparency and accountability. Does an increase in the former necessarily imply an increase in the latter? At the empirical level, it examines whether WikiLeaks contributes to the public’s ability to hold governments and organizations accountable by increasing transparency and providing necessary information. That is, do leaks shift the balance of power between publics and governments? If not, can we nevertheless regard internet-based digital leaking a symbolic act of political protest in support of a democratic ideal? The analysis is structured around five parameters, each of which relates to the ability of WikiLeaks to promote accountability via leaking. We find that although WikiLeaks increases the amount of information available to publics, it does not provide for transparency. On the one hand, the mere fact of leaking does not necessarily identify responsible government officials or force them to justify their policies. On the other, the information that is contained in the leaked documents has to be interpreted before it can be acted upon by interested citizens. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the sort of transparency promoted by WikiLeaks is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for political accountability.