The politicisation of whistleblowers: a case study

Abstract

The focus of this article is on the political nature of whistleblowing. It argues that reprisals by management, rather than silencing the whistleblower, result in the transformation and politicisation of the individual. The process that leads to the transformation of a loyal employee into a political activist is considered through analysing the experiences of a whistleblower in the sphere of financial regulation in South Africa. The article investigates the effect of retaliation by the employer on the employee‐organisational relationship. It looks in particular at the nature of the power struggle between the whistleblower and management and suggests explanations why organisations tend to respond in such a harsh fashion to whistleblowing. It concludes that the act of whistleblowing not only displays an expressive dimension, but also a political instrumental dimension that is often neglected in literature on whistleblowing.

Authentic Leadership and Whistleblowing: Mediating Roles of Psychological Safety and Personal Identification

“…Thus, observers face retaliation by wrongdoers while non-observers need to entail interpersonal risks both from wrongdoers and members. Under the climate of team psychological safety, whistleblowers feel safely treated by leaders and members if they discover immoral behaviors (Uys 2000). Authentic leaders encourage members to act in line with internalized values, which promotes non-observers to share the information they know whether it is the truth or not.…”

The Lost Good Self: Why the whistleblower is hated and stigmatized

“…A further central area of writing concerns the issues of power and the political dimensions of whistleblowing, with Near, Dworkin and Miceli noting that '[t]heories of the whistleblowing process have focused primarily on the political behaviours … or power processes involved ' (1993, p. 394), and Near and Miceli arguing that whistleblowing is in essence 'a political action ' (1985, p. 9) that involves 'a power struggle among social actors ' (1996, p. 521). Especially relevant here, authors such as Mansbach (2007) and Uys (2000) explore the power exercised by institutions and managers in response to whistleblowers, with Parmerlee, Near and Jensen viewing retaliation against the whistleblower as 'one means of control an organization exercises over its members ' (1982, p. 20). In a similar vein, Kenny suggests that the silencing of the whistleblower involves 'a matrix of control that not only constrains … but also produces … certain kinds of subjects' (2018, p. 1029), while Kenny, Fotaki and Scriver (2018) argue that power circulates between whistleblowers and those who retaliate against them, rather than simply being a resource that is held or not held.…”

Political surplus of whistleblowing: a case study

“…In similar vein, Uys (2000) presents the case of an employee of the South Africa Reserve Bank who, after exposing irregularities at the Bank, was accused of breaching the Bank's secrecy and transferred to a section of the Bank where no post existed for him. After several months, he resigned as a result of the stress.…”