Abstract

The seminar will present the book by Mark Drumbl and Barbora Holá, Informers up Close: Stories from Communist Prague (Oxford University Press, 2024). Collaborators, informers, snitches, touts, and tattlers rattle about in times of conflict, authoritarianism, and political violence. Networks of informers are often an indispensable tool of terror in repressive regimes. While these individuals often play liminal roles in the violence itself, and may themselves be victims, they may also cause others terrible hurt and harm. Without them, human rights abuses would not normalize nor spread as widely. Using a case study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945-1989), and drawing on the Czechoslovak Communist Secret Police (StB) archives and informers’ oral histories, this book explores processes of informing to authorities in repressive times and considers what transitional justice should do – if anything – with informers after repression ends. The book unravels the complex motivations behind informing, societal reactions to informing, and explores the role of emotions in informer motivations. Informers understandably provoke strong reactions. We however hope to advance the conversation from reflexive visceral disdain towards a more reflective assessment. The presentation will also connect this project to current debates over whistleblowers, police informers, technological surveillance, informing in so-called liberal states, and cancel culture.