IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v9y2021i1p281-291.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

From Neglect to Protection: Attitudes towards Whistleblowers in the European Institutions (1957–2002)

Author

Listed:
  • Joris Gijsenbergh

    (Faculty of Law, Radboud University, The Netherlands)

Abstract

This article analyses how transparency became a buzzword in the European Union (EU) and its predecessors. In order to do so, it examines how the European Parliament (EP), the European Commission, the Court of Justice, and earlier European institutions responded to whistleblowing, between 1957 and 2002. In 2019, the EP agreed to encourage and protect whistleblowers. However, whistleblowing is far from a recent phenomenon. Historical examples include Louis Worms (1957), Stanley Adams (1973), and Paul van Buitenen (1998). Based on policy documents and parliamentary debates, this article studies the attitudes and reactions within European institutions towards whistleblowing. Their responses to unauthorized disclosures show how their views on openness developed from the beginning of European integration. Such cases sparked debate on whether whistleblowers deserved praise for revealing misconduct, or criticism for breaching corporate and political secrecy. In addition, whistleblowing cases urged politicians and officials to discuss how valuable transparency was, and whether the public deserved to be informed. This article adds a historical perspective to the multidisciplinary literature on whistleblowing. Both its focus on the European Coal and Steel Community, European Economic Community, and EU and its focus on changing attitudes towards transparency provide an important contribution to this multidisciplinary field.

Suggested Citation

  • Joris Gijsenbergh, 2021. "From Neglect to Protection: Attitudes towards Whistleblowers in the European Institutions (1957–2002)," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 281-291.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:281-291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/3944
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaiser, Wolfram, 2009. "Bringing History Back In To the Study of Transnational Networks in European Integration," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(2), pages 223-239, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Camille Kelbel & Axel Marx & Julien Navarro, 2021. "Editorial: Access or Excess? Redefining the Boundaries of Transparency in the EU’s Decision-Making," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 221-225.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jan-Henrik Meyer, 2011. "Appropriating the Environment. How the European Institutions Received the Novel Idea of the Environment and Made it Their Own," KFG Working Papers p0031, Free University Berlin.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v:9:y:2021:i:1:p:281-291. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.