Freedom of Information and Social Science Research Design by Kevin Walby Alex Luscombe

Author:Kevin Walby, Alex Luscombe [Kevin Walby, Alex Luscombe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138345744
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2019-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

PART 3

Freedom of Information

Triangulation, data analysis and exposition

8

PIECING IT TOGETHER, STUDYING PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Freedom of Information as oligoptic technologies

Debra Mackinnon

Introduction

Owing to the difficulty in gathering qualitative and quantitative data about surveillance, security and intelligence, scholars have pioneered new methods and adapted existing ones.1 In particular, Access to Information (ATI) and Freedom of Information (FOI) mechanisms2 are progressively being used by social science researchers to supplement traditional data collection practices. By exercising quasi-constitutional rights, these mechanisms enable individuals and organisations to request information from federal, provincial and municipal levels of government, which thereby provides a means of compelling a somewhat limited form of transparency (Epp, 2000). These mechanisms are often useful for addressing internal dynamics, historical contexts, knowledge production and representations of government bodies (Larsen & Walby, 2012). Cast as a form of “smart mixed methods” (Lather, 2010), ATI/FOI can be used to guide exploratory research, highlight longitudinal trends and establish disjunctures between official, experiential and ATI/FOI produced data (Savage & Hyde, 2014; Walby & Larsen, 2011). Furthermore, this access to the “live archive” produces insights into surveillance societies, the interoperability of government agencies, as well as challenges, conceptions or insertions of the “state” (Larsen & Walby, 2012). Government agencies and the records that are produced by them are rarely the domain of a single organisation (Walby & Larsen, 2011). Rather than a monolithic, homogenous entity, these mechanisms lend credence to analysis that shows the multitude of networked agencies enacting “the state.” For example, much research has used FOI to explore the role of the corrections (Larsen & Piché, 2009), policing (Luscombe & Walby, 2014; Monaghan & Walby 2012) and national security (Monaghan, 2017).

However, in all of these instances, “the state” and its actions are never wholly “public.” Nowhere is this more apparent than with respect to Public–Private Partnerships (PPPs), and in particular public–private policing3 partnerships. As established by Bayley and Shearing (1996), these policing projects are often made up of a network of public and private actors. Noting intensification and variegated corporate structures, recent work on networked policing has primarily focused on private contract firms (Huey & Rosenberg, 2004; Lippert & O’Connor, 2006; Lippert & Walby, 2012) as well as community-based methods models (Johnson & Shearing, 2003). Entangled with broader trends of neoliberalisation, outsourcing/agentification, entrepreneurialism, privatisation and austerity, this work depicts a shift from direct and public state control to private and quasi-entities. Referred to as New Public Management (NPM), since the 1980s, many democratic nations have dramatically restructured their private sector in these ways (Roberts, 2000). However, as noted by Roberts in 2000 – while this shift to NPM has been criticised for undermining democratic control, putting public interest at odds with entrepreneurialism and weakening chains of responsibility – little attention has been paid to how NPM restructuring and the rise of these quasi-entities has weakened FOI mechanisms.

In this chapter, I review methods for studying private policing and offer critical reflections on methods and methodology. This chapter is guided by the following key question: What does it mean to do

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