How to Deal with Executive Secrecy? Opposition Perspectives and Practices in the German Bundestag

Abstract

Opposition parties in parliamentary democracies act as controllers of the executive. Consequently, executive secrecy should be a pressing issue as it deprives them of information for public scrutiny. This article investigates how parliamentary opposition parties and individual politicians discuss executive secrecy using the example of the German Bundestag. Given disagreement about secrecy’s legitimacy, especially in actual political practice, the article systematises opposition strategies. The analysis reveals two distinct ones: active cooperation strategies, where opposition parties cooperate with the governing majority to legally define secrecy’s framework and oversight, and passive coping strategies where MPs develop scrutiny practices that function despite secrecy.