State Secrecy: A Literature Review

Abstract

What is secrecy? What is a state secret? Which state secrets deserve protection from disclosures? How are state secrets protected from disclosure? In this review, I use these questions as an organizing framework to review the richness of a very disparate, largely US-centric, but also multidisciplinary literature. In doing so, I highlight the social nature of secrecy-that it is a social construct with social effects and consequences-and the need for further research to unveil those rationalities that specific discourses on state secrecy put forward to legitimize the nondisclosure of state secrets.