Whistleblowing in the police organization – ambivalent evaluations in the discourse on whistleblowing (A06)

• Subject Area: Criminal Law
• Term: since 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394775490

Attention directed towards internal abuses of power within organisations by members within them, and the resulting external reports of these abuses (whistleblowing), often engender both approval and criticism by society. A major reason for this is the tension between conflicting demands for loyalty and transparency, which inevitably results in disappointment when expectations are not met in cases of non-/disclosure. The project reconstructs and analyses this ambivalence using the German police force as an example, relying primarily on a discourse-analytical approach and including various documents from individuals within the force and organisations closely connected to it.

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres
• Subproject of: SFB 1369: Cultures of Vigilance. Transformations - Spaces - Practices
• Applicant Institution: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
• Project Head: Professor Dr. Ralf Kölbel