Denunciation

Denunciation (from Latin denuntiare, to denounce) is the act of publicly assigning to a person the blame for a perceived wrongdoing, with the hope of bringing attention to it.[1] Notably centralized social control in authoritarian states requires some level of cooperation from the populace. The following two forms of cooperation are essential: first, authorities actively use incentives to elicit denunciations from the populace, through either coercion or the promise of rewards. Second, authorities passively gain access to political negative networks, as individuals denounce to harm others whom they dislike and to gain relative to them. Paradoxically, social control is most effective when authorities provide individuals maximum freedom to direct its coercive power.[2] The most famous informer in western cultural history is Judas, who, according to the New Testament, as one of the twelve disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, made Jesus' arrest and his subsequent delivery to the Romans possible.

A "Lion's Mouth" postbox for anonymous denunciations at the Doge's Palace in Venice. Text translation: "Secret denunciations against anyone who will conceal favors and services or will collude to hide the true revenue from them".

Commonly denunciation is justified because it allegedly leads to a better society by reducing crime. The punishment of the denounced person is said to be justified because the convicted criminal is morally deserving of punishment. Yet, this reasoning does not present a compelling argument for society's right to inflict punishment on a specific individual. Society may recognize the crime's impact on law-abiding society, but it does not even attempt to deal with punishment's effect on law-abiding society. Just as punishment may impact potential lawbreakers, it may also impact those who abide by the law. To fully understand society's right to inflict punishment, one must recognize punishment's full impact on all segments of society, not just the potential lawbreakers.[3]

In the context of dictatorships such as Russia, the GDR or the Third Reich, a distinction must be made between denunciation and justified reporting. According to a common understanding, not an informer is anyone who, in order to avert dangers to the general public or a part of it, points out a grievance to offices, authorities or renowned media. Instead, the term whistleblower has recently been used in these cases. The US-American Edward Snowden, former member of the CIA, and the Russian Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Moscow Anti-Doping Center, who became a whistleblower on doping practices in Russia, are two famous recent examples.