PHL paper PHYLLIS

Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Whistleblowing as Truth-Telling in the Workplace Abraham Mansbach 1. Introduction Over the last decades, interest in whistleblowing has grown enormously, both within the general public and among researchers. Evidence of public interest in this issue can be seen in the substantial increase in the amount of legislation on whistleblowing, which began in the late 1980s in English-speaking countries and spread to the Continent after the Enron case and the subsequent Sarbanes-Oxley Act. 1Public interest is also reflected in the great number of voluntary organizations that have been established to promote whistleblowing and to defend whistleblowers against harassment and retaliation. 2As a topic for scholarly analysis and academic investigation, whistleblowing has aroused keen interest in various fields. For moral philosophers, the need for whistleblowers to choose between the public good and multiple loyalties−to their company, colleagues, and employer−raises ethical dilemmas involving moral and professional obligations. 3Since whistleblowers are often fired for their efforts, legal scholars have debatedin extensothe questions of employee rights, employment contracts, and existing legislation’s effectiveness in protecting these individuals from harassment and retaliation. 4Whistleblowing has also been discussed as an ethical dilemma in the context of specific professions, especially in the areas of business, administration, and the field of organizational behavior. 5 Despite this interest, the political significance of whistleblowing has been largely ignored and critical questions relating to the practice have remained unanswered. 6What, for example, is the personal and social meaning of whistleblowing? What role does it play in subjectivation in the workplace? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what political vision does the act of whistleblowing embody and represent?

I shall attempt to answer these questions in this article by looking at the ways in which the practice of whistleblowing intersects with the project of radical democracy. Examining a case of whistleblowing that occurred in Israel, I seek to reconceptualize this practice as an act of truth-telling in the workplace by taking recourse to Michael Foucault’s notion ofparrhesia. My first assertion here is that truth-telling in the workplace is a practice of resistance generated by, and in reaction to, a process of subjectivation involving questions of identity and identification. I will further claim that this practice is radically democratic in the sense elaborated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, in that it aims to ensure that the principles and values advocated by liberal democracies are implemented in material life.

Furthermore, it maintains the tension between the individual, private sphere and the socio- political sphere, which is necessary to radicalize democracy. I shall conclude by arguing that the criticism raised against radical democracy – that it neglects the politico-economic sphere in favor of the cultural sphere – ignores practices like truth-telling in the workplace, which typically run along two axes, the culturalandthe politico-economic. My view is that although truth-telling in the workplace is a micropolitical practice and cannot have the same political impact that collective actions do, it keeps liberal democracies vibrant and has the potential to more radically affect democratic subjects and politics. Constellations Volume 16, No 3, 2009.C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 364Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 2. The Case of Mia Kuch and Tnuva The Mia Kuch case involved whistleblowing at Tnuva, a large dairy conglomerate in Israel.

Like many companies at the time, it was owned byHistadrut, Israel’s General Federation of Labor, a union that represented – and continues to represent – the vast majority of workers in Israel. Structurally, this union was connected to the Labor Party, the strongest political force in the country at the time and one that, despite suffering setbacks since 1977, continues to wield enormous power in Israeli politics and society. Like otherHistadrutcompanies, and like many of the producers of basic food commodities in the world, Tnuva enjoyed government subsidies. 7 In 1977, after working as a secretary for Tnuva’s head cashier for three years, the late Mia Kuch noted what seemed to her to be certain financial irregularities or incorrect handling of funds. She reported them to her superiors, whose only action was to demote her to a make-work position in an office isolated from other employees.

In 1982, despite enduring this treatment (or mistreatment), and based on additional ev- idence that she had gathered about the inappropriate managing of the company’s finances, Kuch again went to her superiors.

Again she failed to get them to take any action to investigate or rectify the mismanagement she had uncovered. Disappointed by this reaction, and wanting to help the company avoid what she felt would be a certain case of embezzlement, Kuch presented her complaint to Histadrut. The meeting with the representatives of that institution also failed to get the results that she desired. To the contrary, on top of the harassment she had already suffered, Kuch was threatened with being fired if she continued her allegations. Finally, in 1984, she went to the police. The subsequent investigation revealed that three of Tnuva’s senior executives had been engaged in fraud involving several hundred thousands of dollars. They were tried, found guilty, and sentenced to prison terms.

Prior to this, however, and, only approximately three months after she had filed her complaint with the police, Kuch’s name was published in one of Israel’s major newspapers, along with details of the police investigation. 8Four days later, on April 14, 1985, Tnuva fired her. Kuch appealed that decision before theHistadrutCentral Committee, arguing that the dismissal was motivated by the complaint she had filed with the police and was, therefore, unjustified. She demanded that she be reinstated in her job. The Central Committee, without referring directly to her suspicions and allegations, chose instead to discredit her by portraying her as a mentally disturbed individual.

With the help of a private investigator, the company lawyers obtained a waiver of the medical confidentiality that Kuch had signed when she was first hired by Tnuva. Armed with this waiver, the private investigator obtained Kuch’s medical records from the General Health Fund, which contained information about psychological counseling that she had received years earlier. The documents served as the basis for a psychiatric evaluation issued by Dr. Moshe Avnon, the deputy district psychiatrist for the Haifa area and director of the She’ar Menasheh Psychiatric Hospital. In his evaluation, Dr. Avnon wrote that Kuch suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, which he judged to be so serious that she was unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy. He recommended that she be hospitalized. Kuch did not get her job back.

It is worth noting that the General Health Fund, the largest health-care provider in Israel and financed by the government, was also owned byHistadrut. The She’ar Menasheh Hospital was one of the General Health Fund’s psychiatric centers. This perhaps explains why Dr. Avnon wrote his evaluation based only on Kuch’s medical history−without ever having C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach365 met with her once personally. Because of this and because of her medical records having been obtained fraudulently, Kuch filed a complaint with the Ministry of Health. Its disciplinary committee merely reprimanded Dr. Avnon, allowing him to retain his position. In 1988, Kuch filed a civil lawsuit against the psychiatrist. Nine years later he was found guilty of breach of privacy and negligence and ordered to pay her a substantial compensation. 9 3. Truth and Courage: Weapons of the Weak In the framework of modern democracies, there are several categories of people who expose corruption. One consists of individuals whose profession or job requires them to do so, such as, for example, police officers, income-tax officials, and state comptrollers in countries where that office exists. A second category comprises individuals who make such a disclosure in exchange for some economic or other type of benefit, such as state’s witnesses and police informers. My analysis is confined to a third category, to those people who, like Mia Kuch, expose illegal practices, such as fraud and corruption, in the workplace. Here, I define workplace whistleblowing as the disclosure by a person working within an organization of acts, omissions, practices, or policies by that organization that wrong or harm a third party.

The objective of the disclosure is to stop the harmful behavior and to prevent such conduct in the future. 10 It must be noted that the revelation can be made to superiors within the employing organization or to authorities outside the organization who are in a position to help, such as journalists, the police, or a regulatory agency with oversight responsibilities.

Consequently, this analysis excludes cases where an individual complains about a neighbor littering on public property, or where someone discloses the tax evasion of a person or company that is not the accuser’s employer, in the hope of receiving economic or some other kind of compensation.

Whistleblowing in the workplace, like other acts that expose illegal practices, benefits the general community by protecting the public good, but it differs from them in important ways, which will be outlined in this article. Indeed, I would suggest that we view the act of whistleblowing in the workplace−a practice in democratic societies−as something similar toparrhesia, a form of truth-telling that was practiced in ancient Greece. Consequently, we should see the workplace whistleblower or truth-teller as a late-modernparrhesiastes.

Michel Foucault analyzedparrhesiain the last of his seminars. He describesparrhesia, which is generally translated as “free speech” or “frank speech,” as: ...a kind of verbal activity where the speaker has a specific relation to truth through frankness, a certain relationship to his own life through danger, a certain type of relation to himself or other people through criticism (self-criticism or criticism of other people), and a specific relation to moral law through freedom and duty. More precisely,parrhesiais a verbal activity in which a speaker expresses his personal relationship to truth, and risks his life because he recognizes truth-telling as a duty to improve or help other people (as well as himself). 11 The messenger who brings the news of a lost battle at the risk of his or her own life is a classic example of aparrhesiastes. Other examples−where life is not lost, but where the parrhesiastesstands to lose something extremely valuable−include a politician who voices an unpopular truth, jeopardizing the support of his or her constituency, or a person who risks losing a good friend by criticizing his or her behavior.

Like aparrhesiastes, Mia Kuch and, indeed, all workplace truth-tellers who expose illegal acts or omissions by their employers, operate by definition from a position of weakness. In C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 366Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 many cases, these employees have signed a contract of employment stipulating that they not discuss confidential information pertaining to the company. Although there are exceptions, most employees who reveal illegal acts do not hold high-level positions in the company and are completely dependent on their jobs for economic and material support. Such was the case with Kuch. Her subordinate, and thus weak, position as a secretary at Tnuva made her vulnerable to being demoted and eventually fired, to being portrayed as a mental patient, and to having her basic rights easily violated. 12 Such acts of reprisal are common practice against whistleblowers. The extensive literature on this topic shows that in the civil service, such individuals are transferred to inferior positions or dead-end jobs and are denied promotions. Meanwhile, in the private sector, whistleblowers usually end up unemployed, having either been fired or having left because their work environment became unbearable. 13 Only rarely do they receive the recognition and public tribute that their actions merit. 14 It is worth noting that the practice of discrediting truth-tellers in the workplace by ma- ligning their mental health, as was done to Kuch, is not atypical. Some studies in the United States report that employers accuse whistleblowers of insanity or paranoia, and then send them to psychological counseling. Medical doctors employed by corporations have reported that managers accuse dissident employees, or employees with whom they have a dispute, of “unbalanced behavior.” 15 The whistleblower’s position of weakness is counterbalanced by the factual truth he or she possesses and by his or her sense of duty and personal bravery. Kuch’s actions exemplify what the extensive research on this topic has revealed. Truth-tellers in the workplace exhibit fierce dedication to their efforts to expose illegal acts, as well as tremendous courage on par with that of the ancientparrhesiastes. Most truth-tellers in the workplace are ordinary people who have persisted in extraordinary ways in their attempt to bring the truth to light and to avoid harm to the public. Despite confronting threats, slander, and harassment, they refused to back down or to renounce their allegations, even as they suffered personal damage as a consequence of their actions.

Mia Kuch’s bravery becomes even more apparent−and startling−when we consider that the Tnuva Company was an appendage ofHistadrutand the Labor Party, which dominated Israeli politics at that time. Tnuva’s highest corporate officers were also officials ofHistadrut and members of the Labor Party. 16 This aspect of Mia Kuch’s actions gives us an idea of the terrain in which whistleblowing can occur, as well as the power that the truth-teller in the workplace might have to confront. As the extensive networks that exist today between conglomerates and corporations, governments and legislators, demonstrate, this scenario is not unique. 4. The Public Benefit and Surplus Value of Truth-Telling in the Workplace Parrhesia, as Foucault describes it, is not just an act whereby certain personal values are challenged or put at risk; it also has a social and political meaning. In the fourth century B.C., parrhesiawas an essential characteristic of Athenian democracy.Parrhesiawas a privilege granted to honorable citizens, which conferred on them the right to public speech. The other citizens, as well as non-citizens and slaves, were excluded fromparrhesia, and they did not enjoy the right of presenting issues or problems for public deliberation. Later, in the Hellenic monarchies, the king’s advisor was required to useparrhesiato help the king make decisions and as a means of tempering his power and furthering the public good.

C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach367 The whistleblower today does not enjoy the same social recognition or status as the Greekparrhesiastes. On the contrary, in the abundant literature on the topic, we even find some scholars recommending that people not “blow the whistle” because society is still not prepared for it and because of the hardship and suffering that might ensue for the truth-teller. 17 It is also worth noting that existing legislation to protect whistleblowers from consequent harassment and job loss has proven, in the great majority of cases, to be ineffectual. 18 Truth-telling in the workplace is, nevertheless, similar toparrhesiain that it is an act intended to create change in the decisions made by more powerful actors, such as management and superiors. In the corporate and organizational world, attempts at change can be directed towards the way in which work is carried out. They can also affect earnings or management’s control over employees.

Many acts of whistleblowing have not succeeded in improving the organization internally.

And it has also been argued that, from the point of view of the organization, whistleblowing can be detrimental given that it breaks the bonds of trust between employees and harms the company’s reputation. But if the whistleblower’s message is heard by someone with the power to take action and alter the course of things, whistleblowing can benefit both the organization and the public in general. Furthermore, from the point of view of the body politic, truth-telling in the workplace has a trans-organizational and public benefit, both in material terms as well as in the realm of principles and values. This practice prevents illegal acts from being committed that could harm the public, in general, or a group of consumers, in particular. It might entail a disclosure that a pharmaceutical company is violating FDA regulations, an act that would save the lives of the many patients who trust that those companies and the related regulatory or oversight agencies are honest. Or the revelation that cigarettes are being laced with addictive substances, a disclosure that could also save thousands of lives as well as governments and taxpayers enormous amounts in health-care costs. There are cases with great resonance and broad effects, such as that of Mark Felt, Watergate’s famous “Deep Throat,” who exposed the illegal activities undertaken by the Republican Party during its election campaign, which ultimately brought about U.S.

President Richard Nixon’s resignation. The Enron case unleashed a public campaign and led to the passage of major legislation pertaining to corporations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This, in turn, had worldwide ramifications and the regulations on global corporations were strengthened in order to protect the public from similar fraud in the future. As studies have shown, even acts of lesser impact or resonance have significant value for workplace norms and culture as well as for avoiding public harm.

Truth-telling in the workplace also has a political surplus value, and this is not limited to the trans-organizational effect that stopping the wrong might have. The surplus can also be the result of further action taken by the truth-teller. In many cases, the personal autonomy and social solidarity inherent in acts of whistleblowing extend to other spheres of civil society, thus broadening the benefit to society as a whole or to specific groups and/or individuals.

This was also true in the case of Mia Kuch.

In 1989, in the midst of her legal battle with Dr. Avnon, Kuch co-foundedOggen(which means “anchor” in Hebrew), the Association for Ethics and for the Eradication of Corrup- tion in Israel. This organization was founded by truth-tellers who, like Kuch, had suffered harassment and retaliation in their respective places of employment for having exposed illegal practices.Oggenwas established with a dual mission: to provide legal counsel for whistleblowers in Israel, and to promote laws designed to protect whistleblowers and stop corruption. In general, the organization strives to promote democratic values in Israel, and C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 368Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 honest administrative practices, responsibility, accountability, and integrity in the private and public sectors. Since its founding,Oggenhas helped hundreds of people who would have been discriminated against or fired from their jobs for having told the truth as well as lobbying to expand the laws and regulations that protect truth-tellers in the workplace.

The case of Mia Kuch is not unique. On many occasions, truth-tellers in the workplace have extended their civic activities to the public sphere, joining or founding organizations in civil society that address issues of transparency, environmental degradation, and social accountability. 19 5. From Voluntary Subordination to Resistance against Oppression Why do the dominated so frequently consent to their subordination and acquiesce to their subordinators? And how is consent manufactured in the workplace? Throughout history, these questions have garnered a variety of responses. In general, and based on the works of Karl Marx and Max Weber, the answers reveal systems of hierarchical structures that are united by various ideological and material elements and combined with a variety of tactics designed to obtain workers’ compliance. 20 Nevertheless, and in spite of the apparent tightness of these systems, studies of the “logic” of labor and organizational processes have identified different forms of resistance that appear in the crevices of these systems. Bottom- up resistance can take many forms, such as outright sabotage, foot-dragging, sabotage by circumvention, and other work-avoidance strategies, such as when employees spend time on personal activities while at work or take office supplies for their personal use. 21 Truth-telling in the workplace has also been identified as one of these forms of resistance, and the truth-teller has been called, appropriately, an “ethical dissenter.” 22 However, the workplace truth-teller has unique characteristics that distinguish him or her from those who practice other forms of resistance. The subject position of the truth-teller is special. There are those who think that whistleblowers are na¨ ve to assume that an organization actually adheres to its stated mission and would consequently want to know about and rectify illegal activity.

In reality, truth-tellers are usually employees who are extremely loyal to the companies in which they work. They tend to be highly competent and respected and have stronger than normal allegiance to organizational as well as extra-organizational principles and norms. 23 Before going to the police, Mia Kuch twice informed her immediate superiors of her suspicions and, when nothing was done, informedHistadrut, the owner of Tnuva. It was only when this too produced no results that she blew the whistle. She acted loyally, cautiously, and on the basis of irrefutable evidence accumulated over a substantial period of time. 24 Thus, the whistleblower stops being loyal and obedient to the organization only at that moment when the company demands that she or he collaborate directly or indirectly in illegal activities and/or reprehensible, antisocial workplace norms or behavior.

In order to answer the question of how such resistance is generated, I would suggest that we view the point at which identity, voluntary submission, and oppression converge as the “moment” when this resistance is unleashed.

The nexus between work and identity has been established by thinkers like Marx, Durkheim, and Weber in their analyses of such phenomena as social solidarity, power, and historical change. Although there is a debate today about the extent to which late cap- italism’s social and economic transformations have altered this relationship, the workplace continues to be a powerful source of identity and identification. 25 In the case of workplace truth-tellers, this sense of identification is revealed in their acceptance of the way in which work is organized. Its hierarchical structure and atten- C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach369 dant system of control are seen as beneficial to the company’s organizational efficiency and truth-tellers demonstrate their identification with the company by complying with them. 26 We could term the subject position that the whistleblower occupies in the orga- nization as “voluntary subordination.” As Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe suggest, the meaning of subordination here does not entail antagonism; rather, it simply reflects “a set of differential positions between social agents...which constructs each social identity as positivity...” 27 In the dialectic process of subject formation, truth-telling in the workplace is a typical case of resistance to what Foucault calls the process of subjectivation. 28As a witness, or even an accomplice to an illegal or immoral act in the workplace, the truth-teller resists in order to preserve the integrity of the organization. This struggle is motivated not only by the damage that the act might cause to a third party, but also by the powerful medium of identification that the workplace represents for its employees.

In this sense, truth-telling in the workplace occurs at the point where voluntary subor- dination turns into involuntary servitude or even oppression, to apply Laclau and Mouffe’s distinction. In both voluntary subordination and oppression, “a social agent is subjected to the will of another,” but it is only during oppression that this subjection becomes what Laclau and Mouffe call a “site of antagonism.” 29 For the whistleblower, an antagonistic situation arises when his or her identity or source of identification is threatened. It is misidentifica- tion in or through the workplace that transforms the truth-teller’s compliance or voluntary subordination into a form of oppression or a site of antagonism.

Many employees witness acts at work that damage a third party and do not report them.

For whistleblowers, however, remaining silent in the face of an unjust or even criminal act, knowing the harm that could come from it, is simply not an option. The truth-teller’s action, aimed at reappropriating his or her identity or the process of subjectivation, is a verbal and public act. Like that of the ancientparrhesiastes, it is a public testimony about a factual truth. For the truth-teller, it signifies the re-appropriation of speech. Let us remember that speech is part of the structure of power in the workplace. It is not only that those who are higher up in the hierarchy tell those below them what to do. More crucially, in the workplace as in the primitive societies described by Pierre Clastres, speech is the privilege and property of those in power: “only the masters can speak.” 30 In some types of work, employees are prohibited from revealing any information relating to production, finances, clients, prices, etc. In virtually all organizations, it is strictly forbidden to reveal a trade secret. Whistleblowers violate this prohibition and re-appropriate speech in the workplace in their struggle to shape their identity and the way in which they are identified by others.

In ancient Greece,parrhesiagranted certain persons the right to public speech as well as the right to take an active part in political life. In so doing, it positioned theparrhesiastesin public and personal space. Similarly in our times, truth-telling in the workplace is a discursive weaving of the social, the political, and the personal. It is a performative act.

In their research, Joyce Rothschild and Terance D. Miethe present the testimonies of whistleblowers who declare that, because of their experience and despite the high personal cost, their wounds have been healed and they now feel freer. Their dignity is intact and their sense of self-esteem is much higher than it used to be. In their new jobs they have created a work environment that is better than what they had before. 31 The case of Mia Kuch is living proof of this process of identification, or re-identification.

At one point during her struggle against the mismanagement in her workplace, Kuch was portrayed as being mentally ill. Her fight against corruption, therefore, was simultaneously C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 370Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 one against misidentification. That conflict lasted for twelve years: from 1985, when the Histradrutcommittee to which Kuch had appealed presented “evidence” of her mental instability, until 1997, when the doctor who had issued that diagnosis was found culpable of breach of privacy and negligence and ordered to pay a substantial indemnification.

Kuch’s work in civil society, throughOggen, was also part of this process of (re)identification. Over the years, she came to be recognized as a pioneer in Israel re- garding the defense of truth-tellers and the promotion of legislation to protect them. Even though she suffered public humiliation, she was also awarded prizes and her efforts were publicly recognized. 32 Retired judges, activists, scholars, and intellectuals, among others, were drawn to the organization that Kuch had founded and joined her cause. 6. Truth-Telling in the Workplace: A Radical Democratic Practice Truth-telling in the workplace embodies a political vision that differentiates it from other forms of worker resistance, such as boycotts, foot-dragging, taking company materials for personal use, or simply wasting time. These practices of resistance can be used effectively in both democratic and totalitarian regimes, but not necessarily for the public good. In contrast, truth-telling in the workplace is an effective and beneficial practice exclusive to liberal democracies, that is, to those social arrangements where not only violations of law are punished, but certain values−such as free speech, transparency, and accountability−are also cultivated. To those societies where liberty and truth are valued, and personal autonomy, the public good, law and order, and the struggle against corruption are all encouraged. To those societies, as well, where the creation of associations in civil society enables the battle against corruption, such as that waged by Mia Kuch.

Truth-telling not only preserves democratic values, however, it also radicalizes them.

Indeed, its “logic” concurs with the basic parameters of the radical democratic project as it has been formulated by Laclau and Mouffe. This project presents a vision and a political program that highlights the moral worth of human beings and combines important liberal values, such as autonomy, freedom, and pluralism, with fundamental socialist premises, such as equality and social justice.

One of the central characteristics of this political program is its critical value. Including liberal values into radical democracy’s scope and vision does not mean opening the door to a new form of neo-liberalism. On the contrary, it means that the principles and the values that sustain a vision of radical democracy are continuously being critiqued−politically and publicly by civil society organizations and by internal organisms of regulation and supervision. This endeavor aims to ensure that these values are implemented in material life, on one hand, and that they do not become mere elements of ideological manipulation, on the other.

If the radical democratic project, as Mouffe claims, requires that liberal democratic soci- eties “be accountable for their professed ideals,” which she sees as “the path advocated by those who favor radical and plural democracy,” 33 then Kuch’s act, and truth-telling in the workplace in general, is a practice that takes up this challenge.

Truth-telling in the workplace is also a radical democratic practice in another essential aspect, namely that related to identity construction. The radical democratic project, as Laclau and Mouffe formulate it, is informed by a constructivist vision of identity and its political meaning. This is essential in the scenario that they present, which is one of a social space constructed through ongoing social conflict that brings about the “destructuration of social identities.”’ 34 Consequently, the realization of radical democracy depends on the creation or C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach371 constitution of a new identity, informed by the principles of radical democracy: liberty and equality. The idea is to create a hegemony of democratic forces.

Radical democracy demands self-change, which is a change in identification and of identity. This change is double-sided, occurring at both the collective and the individual level. One constitutes a radical democratic “we,” and the other a radical democratic “I.” Even though Laclau and Mouffe focus mainly on the “we” in their analysis, they are very careful to preserve the analytic distinction between personal and individual auton- omy and liberty and collective autonomy and liberty, or between the private and the public sphere.

The distinction between these two identities is essential to the project of radical democracy because it is what creates the tension that makes a vibrant democracy possible, namely, the tension between liberty and equality, or justice. As Laclau and Mouffe say: Those two identities exist in a permanent tension that can never be reconciled. But this is precisely the tension between liberty and equality that characterizes modern democracy. It is the very life of such a regime. 35 The “we” is realized through an intensification of democratic actions, such as the struggle against inequality in the spirit of radical democracy. In the scenario posed by Laclau and Mouffe, the creation of individuals’ political identities as radical democratic citizens depends on a collective form of identification among the democratic demands found in a variety of movements: women, workers, black, gay, ecological, as well as several other new social movements. 36 In addition to the collective struggles for liberty and equality that create a collective identity, there are struggles that create an individual identity, struggles where personal liberty is envisioned and personal autonomy is exercised.

Truth-telling in the workplace is one of these struggles. It is a personal act that indi- vidualizes, yet simultaneously, by being beneficial to the public, is not antagonistic to the “we.” Moreover, its individual character is evident in practice, since, unlike most forms of democratic activities and forms of resistance to oppression, truth-telling in the workplace cannot be collectivized and still preserve its liberal-democratic nature. Although Rothschild and Miethe suggest collectivizing whistleblowing as a means to initiate widespread political change, the question remains: Is it even possible to speak of a liberal democratic social space that actuallyneedscollective movements of truth-tellers? This would mean that corruption is so widespread that the rule of law and all other liberal and democratic values have dete- riorated to a point where they are almost non-existent. Would such a society continue to be a liberal democracy? I unfortunately do not have the space to address these questions here, but at first glance, it seems to me that their answers would be far from clear. 7. Recognition and Redistribution in Truth-telling in the Workplace Laclau and Mouffe conceptualize radical democracy as bridging the gap between democratic liberalism and socialism. They take the present institutional framework and the values of lib- eral democracy for granted, suggesting that a radicalization of these values would positively affect social justice and equality. In an important critique of Laclau and Mouffe’s vision of radical democracy, Nancy Fraser argues that, ultimately, such a project cannot provide a solution for the Left because it does not embody “a new comprehensive progressive vision of a just social order” and because it brackets “the question of political economy.” 37 In this C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 372Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 context, she means that Laclau and Mouffe’s vision does not address the exploitation and alienation stemming from the market economy and the need for a redistribution of wealth.

In this, Fraser is largely correct. Laclau and Mouffe do sideline these matters. Although they hold the Marxist view that society is driven by conflict, they criticize traditional Marxism for claiming that class struggle is the “one dynamic which dominates social life.” 38For them, the anti-capitalist struggle is fought on other fronts as well, such as that of the environment.

They also de-center class by legitimizing any struggle against oppression, including, but not limited to, those in the workplace. More broadly, they de-center socialism itself by positing an ongoing democratic revolution as the Archimedean political event and socialist demands as merely “a moment internal to democratic revolution.” 39 Fraser is incorrect, however, when she suggests that radical democracy, formulated in terms of identity construction, addresses the need for recognition but not for redistribution, i.e. the need for cultural justice but not for political and economic justice. Truth-telling in the work-place is a radical democratic practice that sits on two registers: the cultural and the politico-economic. Firstly, it is an act that seeks and may also serve to remedy cultural injustice. In addition to cultural domination, Fraser’s definition of cultural injustice includes non-recognition and disrespect. Whistleblowing thus seeks to rectify harmful abuses in or by the workplace, but also to resist the “cultural” injustice implicit in silently accepting being identified with these abuses. It is an act that insists on the integrity, or recognition, of the truth-teller’s self. As we have seen,Oggen, the Association for Ethics and for the Eradication of Corruption in Israel, was founded by Mia Kuch and other truth-tellers “who suffered discrimination and job termination as a result of their fight for integrity in the workplace, and who have committed themselves to helping others who have been similarly hurt.” 40 On the politico-economic plane, whistleblowing is situated in what Marx saw as the locus of oppressionpar excellance: the workplace. Although this conception may no longer hold true in post-capitalist democracies, the workplace remains a major arena of contest. That is, it remains a site of contestation between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic forces and discourses as well as a site where relations of domination, subjection, and exploitation meet resistance and identification.

To be sure, whistleblowing is a micropolitical practice and, as such, cannot remedy the alienation and exploitation inherent in work that is ruled by the logic of capital and the market.

Nor can it alleviate the major economic injustices of capitalism, or some of the cultural forms of domination. The solution to these problems lies in politico-economic restructuring and cultural recognition, both of which, in turn, would necessitate the redistribution of wealth, the subjection of investment to democratic decision-making, and the reorganization of labor on a global scale.

Truth-telling in the workplace is an individual act, and it is located at the point where an individual’s voluntary submission to employment becomes his or her oppression. It can, however, change working practices in significant ways and possibly even expand the space where labor affects the conditions of its own reproduction. It can also bring democratization to the workplace, which might, thereby, become another venue for addressing the problems of redistribution.

By forcing liberal democratic societies to be accountable for their ideas and by trying to influence how subjectivities are produced while simultaneously benefiting the public, truth-telling in the workplace is one of the practices that keeps liberal democracies vibrant.

In addition, it might just produce radical democratic subjects and politics. C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach373 NOTES This research was supported by The Israeli Science Foundation (grant No.108/05).

1. In 1989, the Whistleblower Protection Act became law in the United States. The Public Interest Disclosure Act was passed in Australia in 1994 and in the UK in 1998. Laws entitled “The Protected Disclosures Act” were passed in New Zealand and South Africa in 2000. The Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act, passed in the United States in 2002 following the collapse of Enron, obliges all subsidiaries of US public companies, all over the world, to comply with the SOX provisions, which stipulate, among other things, the creation of anonymous employee whistleblower hotlines. On the effectiveness of existing legislation to protect whistleblowers from harassment, see note 18 below.

2. There are scores of such organizations in the U.S. alone, at both the non-governmental and the governmental level. Among the latter, the most prominent is the Government Accountability Project. In the UK, there is Public Concern at Work, and in Australia the Open Democracy Advice Centre. One of the principal things these civil society agencies do to protect whistleblowers and encourage whistleblowing is to promote legislation.

3. See, for example, Richard T. De George,Business Ethics(New York: Macmillan, 1981); Sissela Bok,Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation(New York: Pantheon Books, 1983); Gene G. James, “Whistleblowing: Its Moral Justification,”Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality, Michael Hoffman and Robert E. Frederick, eds. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984): 290–300; Conflicting Loyalties in the Workplace, ed. Frederick A. Elliston (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985); Fred C. Alford, “Whistleblowers and the Narrative of Ethics,”Journal of Social Philosophy 32 (2001): 402–418.

4. See, for example, Terry Morehead Dworkin and Janet P. Near, “A Better Statutory Approach to Whistle-Blowing,”Business Ethics Quarterly7 (1997): 1–16; James B. Hellmer Jr., Ann Lugbill, and Robert Clark Neff Jr.,False Claims Act: Whistleblower Litigation(Charlottesville, Va.: Lexus Law Publishing, 1999); James Gobert and Maurice Punch “Whistleblowers, the Public Interest, and the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998,”Modern Law Review, 63 (2003): 25–54; Cherry, A. Miriam “Whistling in the Dark?

Corporate Fraud, Whistleblowers, and the Implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act for Employment Law.” Washington Law Review79 (2004): 1029; John Bowers, Martin Fodder, Jeremy Lewis, and Jack Mitchell Whistleblowing: Law and Practice(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

5. The list of professional fields, and research done, is extensive. The following is a sample of them. For internal audit, see Gerald Vinten, “The Whistleblowing Internal Auditor,”Internal Auditing8 (1992): 26–33; and Sema Barlas, “Whistleblower Protection Criticized,”Internal Auditor, 50 (1993): 11.

For environmental protection, see Matley, J., Greene, R. and McCauley, C. “Health, Safety and Environment:

CE Readers Say What’s Right,”Chemical Engineering94 (1987): 108–120. For engineering, see Michael W. Hoffman, “The Ford Pinto,”Business Ethics: Readings and Cases in Corporate Morality;andMike W. Martin and Roland Schinzinger,Ethics in Engineering(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005). For law and policing, see James Rosecrance, “Whistleblowing in Probation Departments,”Journal of Criminal Justice 16 (1988): 99–109; and John Kleinig,Handled with Discretion: Ethical Issues in Police Decision Making (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1996). For industrial organization, see C´ ecile Aubert, Patrick Rey, and William E. Kovacic, “The Impact of Leniency and Whistleblowing Programs on Cartels,” International Journal of Industrial Organization24 (2006): 1241–1266. For public health and social services, see Jean K. Lennane, “Whistleblowing: A Health Issue,”British Medical Journal307 (1993): 667–670; Geoffrey Hunt, ed.,Whistleblowing in the Health Services: Accountability, Law, and Professional Practice, (London: Edward Arnold, 1995); and Geoffrey Hunt, ed.,Whistleblowing in the Social Services: Public Accountability and Professional Practice(London: Edward Arnold, 1998). For whistleblowing in medicine, see Rosamond Rhodes and James J. Strain, “Whistleblowers in Academic Medicine,”Journal of Medical Ethics30 (2004): 35–9. For whistleblowing in the army, see Shmuel Ellis and Shaul Arieli, “Predicting Intentions to Report Administrative and Disciplinary Infractions: Applying the Reasoned Action Model,” Human Relations52 (1999): 947–967.

6. A notable exception is Joyce Rothschild and Terance D. Miethe, “Whistleblowing as Resistance in Modern Work Organizations,”Resistance and Power in Organizations, John M. Jermier, David Knights and Walter R. Nord, eds. (London: Rutledge, 1994): 252–273. See also Stewart Clegg, “Power Relations and the Constitution of the Resistant Subject,” inResistance and Power in Organizations, 274–325; Wim Van- dekerckhove,Whistleblowing and Organizational Social Responsibility: A Global Assessment(Hampshire:

Ashgate, 2006); Tina Uys in “The Politicization of Whistleblowers: A Case Study,”Business Ethics9 (2000):

259–267. Peter Edward and Hugh Willmott “Structures, Identities and Politics: Bringing Corporate Citizen- ship into the Corporation,”Handbook of Research on Global Corporate Citizenship, ed. Guido Palazzo and Andreas Scherer (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 2008): 405–429; William De Maria, W., “Whistleblowers C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 374Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 and Organizational Protesters: Crossing Imaginary Borders,”Current Sociology56 (2008): 865–883; and Joyce Rothschild, “Freedom of Speech Denied, Dignity Assaulted: What the Whistleblowers Experience in the US,”Current Sociology56 (2008): 884–903.

7.Histadrut,originally the “General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel,” was founded in December 1920 as a Jewish trade union that would also provide services for its members, such as an employment exchange and welfare rights. With the establishment of the state in 1948,Histadrutbecame one of Israel’s most powerful institutions. Through its economic arm,Hevrat HaOvdim(the “General Cooperative Association of Labor in Israel”),Histadrutowned and operated a number of businesses and factories, including the country’s largest industrial conglomerates and its largest bank. Through theKupat Holim,Histadrutalso provided a comprehensive health-care system. Its membership in 1983 was 1,600,000 (including dependants), accounting for more than one-third of the total population of Israel and about 85 percent of all wage earners. For a time, it was the largest employer in the country. In 1989, for exam- ple,Histadrutemployed approximately 280,000 workers. With the increasing liberalization of the Israeli economy since the 1980s and the overall sale of its assets, the role and size ofHistadruthas declined. See Gabriel Bartal,The General Federation: Structure and Activities(Tel-Aviv: The Executive Committee, the General Federation of Workers in the Land of Israel, 1991 (updated edition, Hebrew). Lev Greenberg,The Histadrut Above All(Jerusalem: Nevo Publishing, 1993, Hebrew).

8. The case was first published in the now extinct Israeli dailyHadashoton the 10th of April, 1985.

Since then, and throughout the years, the case has repeatedly been mentioned in the Israeli press in the context of cases where corruption is disclosed.

9. Detailed information on the case can be found in the police complaint filed by Mia Kuch at the Tel-Aviv Police Station, 274/84; in the Tel-Aviv-Yaffo District Court decision, criminal file 416/85; and in the High Court decision of the case “Mia Kuch vs. Attorney General,” 34/91.

10. See, for example, Gene G. James, “Whistleblowing: Its Nature and Justification,”Philosophy in Context10 (1980): 99–117, and Geoffrey Hunt, “Whistle-Blowing,” inEncyclopedia of Applied Ethics, vol. 4 (New York: Academic Press, 1998): 525–535.

11. Michel Foucault,Fearless Speech(Los Angeles: Semiotexte(s), 2001), 19.

12. For an example of a truth-teller in the workplace high up in the hierarchy, see Peter Rost,The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman(Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2006).

13. Thomas Devine and Donald Alpin, “Abuse of Authority: The Office of the Special Counsel and Whistleblower Protection,”Antioch Law Journal4 (1986): 5–71; Myron Peretz Glazer and Penina Migdal Glazer,The Whistleblowers: Exposing Corruption in Government and Industry(New York: Basic Books, 1989); Vincent Neary,The Trials of a Whistleblower: Interim Report on Victimization and Harassment for Blowing the Whistle(Turramurra NSW: V. Neary, 1992); Fred C. Alford,Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power(NY: Cornell University Press, 2002); Roberta Ann Johnson,Whistleblowing: When it Works and Why(Boulder: L. Reinner Publishers, 2003).

14. A study in the United States found that 82% of whistleblowers suffered harassment of some kind and that 60% were fired. David Culp, “Whistleblowers: Corporate Anarchists or Heroes? Towards a Judicial Perspective,”Labor Law Journal13 (1995): 65–75. Similar numbers were found by Joyce Rothschild and Terence Miethe, see “Whistle Blower Disclosures and Management Retaliation,”Work and Occupations 26 (1999): 107–128; and in “Disclosing Misconducts in Work Organizations: An Empirical Analysis of the Situational Factors that Foster Whistelblowing,”Research in the Sociology of Work8: 211–227. On very rare occasions truth-tellers in the workplace receive the public tribute they expect and deserve, as in the cases of Cynthia Cooper (WorldCom), Sherron Watkins (Enron) and Coleen Rowley (FBI). These women briefly became American heroines after their truth-telling whenTi m emagazine named them Persons of the Year for 2002.

15. Rothschild and Miethe, “Whistleblowing as Resistance in Modern Work Organizations,” 265.

16. Israeli political parties have regularly contested elections to theHistadrutConference, held every four years. They also have contested elections to the National Labor Council and to the country’s seventy- two local labor councils. DuringHistadrut’sentire existence, until 1995, the secretary general was a Labor Party leader and a member of its parliament (Knesset) delegation. Amir Perez’s political trajectory is a living example of the intimate ties between the Histadrut, the Labor Part and the Governement. In 1995, Perez was elected chairman of the NewHistadrutby a huge majority of the members ofHistadrutall over Israel.

In May 2002, he was appointed for an additional term of five years. In 2004, Perez ran for the position of head of the Labor Party and, after winning, quit his job as chairman ofHistadrut. He served as the minister of defense from May 2006 to June 2007.

17. Geral Vinten “Whistleblowing: the UK experience.”Management Decision42, no. 1 (2004):

139–151.

C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Keeping Democracy Vibrant: Abraham Mansbach375 18. Many scholars have questioned the possibility of fully protecting whistleblowers by legal means.

See Donald Alpin and Thomas Devine, “Whistleblower Protection−The Gap Between the Law and Reality,”Howard Law Journal31 (1988): 223–232; Thomas Devine, “The Whistleblowers Protection Act of 1989: Foundations for the Modern Law of Employment Dissent,”Administrative Law Review51 (1999):

531–577; Stephen M. Kohn, Michael D. Kohn, and David K. Colapinto,A Guide to Legal Protection for Corporate Employees(Westport: Praeger Publishers, 2004). Other legal obstacles to protecting and encouraging whistleblowers are evident in the response of the French authorities to the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act. In two separate decisions made on 26 May 2005, the French National Commission for Data Protection and Liberties (CNIL) formally rejected the use of whistleblowing. The commission’s argument was that anonymous whistleblowing−a requisite of SOX−is unfair in that those accused may not be able to access or reply to the accusations made against them. The commission also expressed serious reservations about the SOX provisions as being contrary to French ethical principles about anonymous denunciation.

See Terry Morehead Dworkin, “SOX and Whistleblowing,”Michigan Law Review105 (2006): 1758–1780.

19. For a detailed account of the political surplus of Mia Kuch’s action and of other truth tellers in the workplace, see Abraham Mansbach “The Political Surplus of Whistleblowing: A Case Study,”Business Ethics: A European Review16 (2007): 124–130.

20. For a careful coverage of the major social theories of work see Marek Korczynski, Randy Hodson and Paul Edwards, eds.,Social Theory at Work(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

21. For outright sabotage, see John Jermier, “Sabotage at Work: The Rational View,”Research of the Sociology of Organizations6 (1988): 101–34. For work avoidance strategies, see Clarck Molsted, “Control Strategies Used by Industrial Brewery Workers: Work, Avoidance, Impression Management Solidarity,” Human Organization47 (1998): 354–60. Michel de Certeau speaks aboutla perruqueas a form of resistance at work.La perruquerefers to work an individual does for himself or herself in the guise of doing work for an employer, such as when workers use scrap materials and factory machines to create objects for themselves. Michel de Certeau,The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkley: University of California Press, 1984). For foot-dragging and other forms of resistance in the agrarian sphere, see James Scott’sWeapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985).

22. See Vinten,Whistleblowing, Subversion or Corporate Citizenship; Frederick A. Elliston. “Civil disobedience and whistleblowing: A comparative appraisal of two forms of dissent,”Journal of Business Ethics1 (1982), 23–28. Brian Martin. “Whistleblowing and Nonviolence: Activist paradigm.”Philosophy and Social Action25 (1999): 5–18.

23. William De Maria, “The welfare whistleblower: In praise of troublesome people,”Australian Social Work49 (1996): 15–24.

24. It is recommended that for both strategic and ethical reasons, whistleblowers should first make their complaint within the organization itself (internal disclosure) and disclose to an outside agency only when the organization fails to stop the illicit activity. This two-step procedure enables whistleblowers to remain loyal to the organization even as they try to put a stop to its harmful activities. It also shows that they are free of ulterior motives and provides them with the moral justification for taking their case elsewhere, if need be. Organizations that support and give advice to whistleblowers recommend taking previous steps, such as internal whistleblowing, before going public, either to the press or an external authority. See, for example, www.riskavert.com; www.safecall.co.uk; www.whistleblowing.us; www.whistleblowerlaws.com.

See Terry M. Dworkin, and Melissa S. Baucus. “Internal vs. external whistleblowers: A comparison of whistleblowing processes,”Journal of Business Ethics17 (1998): 1281–1298.

25. See Robin Leidner, “Identity at Work,”Social Theory at Work, 424–463.

26. See David Collinson, “Strategies of Resistance: Power, Knowledge and subjectivity in the Work- place,” in Jermier, et al,Resistance and Power in Organizations, 25–68.

27. Laclau and Mouffe,Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 154. See also´ Etienne de la Bo´ etie,The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (Whitefish MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004 [1574]).

28. See “The Subject and Power,” Afterword to Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow,Michel Foucault:

Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics,2 nded. (Chicago: University Press, 1983).

29. Laclau and Mouffe,Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 154.

30. Pierre Clastres,Society Against the State, translated by Robert Hurley (New York: Zone Books, 1989) [1974]), 128.

31. Rothschild and Miethe, “Whistleblowing as Resistance in Modern Work Organizations,” 268.

32. In 1993, a couple of months after being elected president of Israel by the Israeli parliament, Ezer Weizman refused to attend a ceremony where he was meant to give whistleblowers a prize recognizing their actions. He refused on the grounds that these people did not deserve any prize, but should, instead, be C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 376Constellations Volume 16, Number 3, 2009 considered traitors (malshinim). The speaker of the house attended the ceremony in place of the president.

Mia Kuch was among the whistleblowers who received the prize and were thus finally recognized for their courageous acts.

33. Mouffe, “Democratic Politics Today,”Dimensions of Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship, Community, Chantal Mouffe, ed. (London: Verso 1992), 1–14, 2.

34. Laclau, “Introduction,”The Making of Political Identities, Ernesto Laclau, ed. (London: Verso, 1994), 1–8, 2–3 35. Ibid.

36. Ibid., 3.

37. Nancy Fraser,Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition(New York: Routledge, 1997), 2.

38. Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe “Hearts, Minds and Radical Democracy,” interview with Dave Castle, 2005, http://www.redpepper.org.uk/natarch /XRADDEM≥HTML.

39. Laclau and Mouffe,Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, 156.

40. http://www.oggen.co.il.

Abraham Mansbachis Professor of Philosophy at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

He is the author ofBeyond Subjectivism(2002) andExistence and Meaning: Heidegger on Man, Language and Art(1998, in Hebrew).

C 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.