Whistleblower as activist and exile: The case of Edward Snowden
By: Munro, Iain and Kenny,Kate
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: Organization Description: 31(6), Sep, 2024: p.994-1008.Subject(s): Sociology, Whistleblower, Edward Snowden, Activism, Exile, NSA, Surveillance, Political Resistance, Digital Privacy, State Institutions, Radical Politics, Activism, Arendt, Exile, Human rights, Parrhesia, Snowden
In:
OrganizationSummary: This article examines Edward Snowden’s transformation from whistleblower to activist and exile, situating his case within broader debates on political resistance and digital privacy. In June 2013, Snowden disclosed thousands of classified NSA and GCHQ documents, exposing unprecedented mass surveillance of citizens by Western intelligence agencies. His revelations sparked global debates on privacy, security, and state power, positioning whistleblowing as a radical form of political activism. The study highlights how Snowden’s exile in Russia reflects the personal costs of whistleblower-activism, while also underscoring the limits of existing organizational theories of whistleblowing in explaining state-level wrongdoing. By analyzing Snowden’s case, the paper demonstrates how whistleblowers can fundamentally reshape public discourse, challenge institutional legitimacy, and reconstruct the boundaries of activism in the digital age. Whistleblowing is an important form of radical political activism, influencing social reform by fundamentally changing the way we see our world. This article contributes to understandings of whistleblower-activism in cases of wrongdoing on the part of state institutions. Extant theorizations of organizational whistleblowing fall short in explaining such instances. In contrast, this article develops four key dynamics of state whistleblower-activism: disclosures radically outside both organization and state, extreme dependence on supporters, democratic activism through alternative loyalties, and parrhesia revealing a crisis in Western democracy. These insights are elaborated through in-depth exploration of the exemplar case of U.S. national security whistleblower Edward Snowden. We argue that the emergent concept of “exilic whistleblowing,” inspired by Hannah Arendt’s work on exile, offers novel insights. Contributions extend understandings of whistleblowing theory and practice highlighting critical aspects of exilic whistleblowing as activist resistance: how it can be used strategically as part of activist critique aimed at changing the status quo, and how the exiled whistleblower acts as a vanguard helping to bring about a new political consciousness concerning the state of modern democracy and its capacity to uphold constitutional and international human rights.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13505084231194824
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 31(6), Sep, 2024: p.994-1008 | Available | AR133449 |
This article examines Edward Snowden’s transformation from whistleblower to activist and exile, situating his case within broader debates on political resistance and digital privacy. In June 2013, Snowden disclosed thousands of classified NSA and GCHQ documents, exposing unprecedented mass surveillance of citizens by Western intelligence agencies. His revelations sparked global debates on privacy, security, and state power, positioning whistleblowing as a radical form of political activism. The study highlights how Snowden’s exile in Russia reflects the personal costs of whistleblower-activism, while also underscoring the limits of existing organizational theories of whistleblowing in explaining state-level wrongdoing. By analyzing Snowden’s case, the paper demonstrates how whistleblowers can fundamentally reshape public discourse, challenge institutional legitimacy, and reconstruct the boundaries of activism in the digital age. Whistleblowing is an important form of radical political activism, influencing social reform by fundamentally changing the way we see our world. This article contributes to understandings of whistleblower-activism in cases of wrongdoing on the part of state institutions. Extant theorizations of organizational whistleblowing fall short in explaining such instances. In contrast, this article develops four key dynamics of state whistleblower-activism: disclosures radically outside both organization and state, extreme dependence on supporters, democratic activism through alternative loyalties, and parrhesia revealing a crisis in Western democracy. These insights are elaborated through in-depth exploration of the exemplar case of U.S. national security whistleblower Edward Snowden. We argue that the emergent concept of “exilic whistleblowing,” inspired by Hannah Arendt’s work on exile, offers novel insights. Contributions extend understandings of whistleblowing theory and practice highlighting critical aspects of exilic whistleblowing as activist resistance: how it can be used strategically as part of activist critique aimed at changing the status quo, and how the exiled whistleblower acts as a vanguard helping to bring about a new political consciousness concerning the state of modern democracy and its capacity to uphold constitutional and international human rights.- Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13505084231194824
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