Faculty of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education Political Accountability in Modern Liberal Democracies A Sociological Case Study of Iceland and the Panama Papers — Elísa Oppheim Master’s thesis in Sociology – May 2018 i PREFACE The thesis you are about to read, is the culmination of two years of simultaneous academic exhilaration and exhaustion. At times I have been whole-heartedly engrossed in the inner workings of my research project, at others, I could hardly stand to think about it. Completing it, is one of the biggest achievements and greatest reliefs of my academic journey, and I would now like to direct my sincerest thanks to those who have accompanied me along the way. Firstly, to my very supportive and extremely knowledgeable supervisor Gunnar Aakvaag; I could not have done this without your amazing enthusiasm for sociology and genuine interest in my project. Thank you for getting me excited about my thesis when I was less inspired, and thank you for the great advice and for all the good conversations. The structure of this preface is for you. Secondly, I would like to thank my girlfriend Victoria, who was always there when I needed encouragement, but also when I needed a stern look to get me working. Thank you for being so patient with me when I could not stop rambling on about my ideas, and for being helpfully optimistic when I thought my ideas terrible. Also, thanks for reading through my chapters and putting up with my convoluted grammatical acrobatics. Thirdly, a big ‘thank you’ to Jørn, for being a great friend. Thanks for reading through some of my chapters, and thank you for taking the brunt of my writers-block frustrations like a champion. I will make it up to you. Twice. Fourthly, to my awesome parents; Thanks mum, for helping me with difficult Icelandic words, and thanks dad, for picking up her phone when she forgot it somewhere and I needed her advice. Lastly, I would like to thank my fellow master students for all the good times, and a special thanks to our advisor at the faculty, Lena Bogstrand, whose door was always open. ii iii ABSTRACT On the 3rd of April 2016, the offshore secrets of the world’s political and financial elites were made public, as a year-long investigation of one of the biggest data leak in history came to fruition. The so-called Panama Papers contained the names of heads of governments, celebrities, criminals and CEO’s; and heavily represented in the leaked files, were the names of high-ranking Icelandic politicians and elected officials. This master’s thesis is a sociological case study of Iceland and the Panama Papers, focusing on the political accountability process sparked by the huge data leak. Using a single-case, process-tracing approach, in congruence with an explorative design and a grounded theory approach to theory development, this thesis seeks to develop a conceptual framework for assessing the relative success of political accountability processes. Analysing the empirical case of Iceland and the Panama Papers through this framework, this thesis will argue that successful political accountability can be achieved in modern liberal democracies, despite the challenges of globalisation and digitalisation. By incorporating the global reach of a new type of activists, and integrating the technologically resourceful journalist collective into the accountability process, political accountability processes can catch up to the globalised elites and overcome the challenge of information overload. iv v Table of Contents 1. Introduction: Why this thesis? ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 Thesis topics and their topicality ...................................................................................... 2 1.2 Research questions ........................................................................................................... 3 1.3 Academic contributions of the thesis ............................................................................... 6 1.4 Structure of the thesis ....................................................................................................... 7 2. Methods: Case study, document analysis and theory development ................................... 9 2.1 Case and case studies ....................................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 Process tracing ......................................................................................................... 12 2.2 Empirical work and document analysis ......................................................................... 14 2.3 Grounded theory approach to theory development ........................................................ 17 2.4 Method of analysis ......................................................................................................... 21 2.5 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 23 3. Theory: Defining the concepts and conceptualising the chain of events ......................... 24 3.1 Definitions of concepts ................................................................................................... 24 3.2 Models of the accountability process ............................................................................. 28 3.2.1 Political Elites ......................................................................................................... 29 3.2.2 Activists ................................................................................................................... 30 3.2.3 Journalist Collectives .............................................................................................. 31 3.2.4 The Media ............................................................................................................... 33 3.2.5 Citizens .................................................................................................................... 34 3.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 36 4. Background: Setting the stage for the Panama Papers ..................................................... 37 4.1 Background .................................................................................................................... 37 4.2 The leak itself ................................................................................................................. 39 4.3 The release: Iceland and the Panama Papers .................................................................. 40 vi 4.4 Iceland reacts to the Panama Papers............................................................................... 43 5. Empirical Data: Examining the social actors of the case ................................................. 46 5.1 The Elites ........................................................................................................................ 46 5.2 The Activists .................................................................................................................. 50 5.3 The Journalist Collective ................................................................................................ 53 5.4 The Media ...................................................................................................................... 56 5.5 The Citizens .................................................................................................................... 59 5.6 Consequences ................................................................................................................. 61 5.7 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 65 6. Analysis and discussion: Evaluation and lessons learned ................................................ 66 6.1 A successful instance of political accountability? .......................................................... 67 6.1.1 The Elites ................................................................................................................. 67 6.1.2 The Activists ........................................................................................................... 68 6.1.3 The Journalist Collective ......................................................................................... 69 6.1.4 The Media ............................................................................................................... 70 6.1.5 The Citizens ............................................................................................................. 71 6.1.6 Consequences .......................................................................................................... 72 6.1.7 A tempered success, but success none the less ....................................................... 73 6.2 Lessons from the empirical case .................................................................................... 74 6.2.1 Globalisation: Runaway political elites and the offshore world ............................. 75 6.2.2 Digitalisation: Information overload and digital security ....................................... 76 6.2.3 The activists: Catching up to globalisation and the elites ....................................... 78 6.2.4 The journalist collective: Handling digitalisation and the data ............................... 79 7. Conclusion: Findings, the research process, and final