Secrets, security, and gendered protection: Exploring state secrecy and legitimacy from a feminist perspective

Abstract Classifying information, or concealing reasons for government decisions, can weaken state legitimacy in a democratic order where citizen insight and participation are imperative. Despite these democratic drawbacks, state secrecy can appear to be necessary and even to consolidate the state. Recognizing that secrecy may both weaken and strengthen state legitimacy, this article argues that feminist perspectives on security and protection deepen the understanding of the relationship between secrecy and legitimacy in democratic states. Through an analysis of contemporary Cold War military heritagization in Sweden, we demonstrate how secrecy's Janus-faced relation to the state is fundamentally gendered. This intervention contributes to critical security literature on secrecy by engaging specifically with the feminist theorizing on the logic of masculinist protection. The way in which state secrecy actualizes gendered protection can shape secrecy practices into both a resource for and a threat against state legitimacy. We argue that while state legitimacy depends on the connections among masculinist protection and the making and keeping of secrets, those very same connections also mean that the leakage of state secrets suggests a feminized vulnerability and an inability to protect citizens. Such feminization may delegitimize the state.