Varieties of Capitalism and the Institutionalization of Whistleblowing: Centralization and Civil Society Engagement

Abstract

Abstract – Efforts to institutionalize whistleblowing have increased since the beginning of the 21st century. While comparative law studies exist, there is little extant research on what operational forms are used to make whistleblower protection real. This chapter uses a ‘varieties of capitalism’ (VOC) approach to provide theoretical insight into observations for seven countries about (1) centralization in governmental agencies of private sector whistleblowing handling roles and (2) the engagement of civil society actors in those handling roles. The authors use data from 2018 to provide baseline findings for future studies. The authors find that overall, in coordinated market economies (CME) whistleblowing institutionalizes through centralization of handling roles and low civil society engagement whereas in liberal market economies (LME) civil society is highly engaged in handling roles that interact in a decentralized way. The authors distinguish different types of institutional emulation that corroborate with the proximity of a nation to a particular VOC idealtype. The authors question the desirability of the neutralizing effect institutionalization seems to have on whistleblowing. To assist practice and whistleblowing campaigners, the authors develop a positional matrix that indicates where institutionalization would ‘naturally’ lead in terms of centralization of handling roles and civil society engagement and which of these two dimensions needs to be strengthened to obtain whistleblowing institutions that are capable to bring about change.