Informers are generally reviled. After all, 'snitches get stitches.' Informers who report to repressive regimes are particularly disdained. While informers may themselves be victims enlisted by the state, their actions cause other individuals to suffer significant harm. Informers, then, are central to the proliferation of endemic human rights abuses. Yet, little is known about exactly why ordinary people end up informing on--at times betraying--other people to state
authorities. Through a case-study of Communist Czechoslovakia (1945-1989) that draws from secret police archives, oral histories, and a broad gamut of secondary sources, this
book unearths what fuels informers to speak to the secret police in repressive times and considers how transitional justice should approach informers once repression ends. This book unravels the complex drivers behind informing and the dynamics of societal reactions to informing. It explores the agency of both informers and secret police officers. By presenting informers 'up close', and the relationships between informers and secret police officers in high resolution,
this book centres the role of emotions in informer motivations and underscores the value of dignity and reconciliation in transitional reconstruction. This book also leverages research from informing in
repressive states to better understand informing in so-called liberal democratic states, which, after all, also rely on informers to maintain law and preserve order. To learn more, read the introduction and conclusion from the book's symposium: https://opiniojuris.org/2024/08/19/introduction-to-the-sympo https://opiniojuris.org/2024/08/23/symposium-on-informers-up https://justiceinconflict.org/2024/10/07/disguise-blur-purr-
and-nakedness-mark-drumbl-and-barbora-hola-on-informers-up-c lose-stories-from-communist-prague/ https://justiceinconflict.org/2024/10/16/to-change-the-we-as
-well-as-the-me-and-the-you-concluding-the-symposium-on-info rmers-up-close/
Industry Reviews
In Informers Up Close, Drumbl and Hola vividly humanize the castigated figure of the informer. This book is essential reading for scholars of transitional justice as it brilliantly opens up new pathways for the pursuit of reconciliation and rehabilitation. * Colleen Murphy, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign *
Drumbl and Hola offer a deep understanding of the shifting emotions among informers, or 'victims who victimize', and their handlers. Informers Up Close treats this contentious subject with tenderness and humanity. * Leigh A Payne, University of Oxford *
The stories of informers in this insightful book confirm their motives and emotions as manifold. Informing reflects the complexity of life in Communist Czechoslovakia. * Jiri Priban, Cardiff University *
Informers Up Close provides an intimate look into the motivations, loyalties, material incentives, and political rationales surrounding decisions to inform in Communist Czechoslovakia. Bringing informer files to life, this book humanizes informers while forcing us to consider the lingering damage wrought on societal trust. * Cynthia Horne, Professor, Western Washington University *
Who are individuals who inform to authorities on their fellow citizens? Responsible citizens? Self-absorbed betrayers? Using Communist Czechoslovakia as a case study, the book provides a nuanced answer. It reveals informers as a diverse group of individuals driven by emotions such as fear, resentment, desire, and loyalty. The book is based on solid theoretical grounding in the area studies literature, and on thorough archival research. And while it delves into the situation in one country, it recalls time and again that informers are not specific to any region, political regime, or historical period, but are always here, always there, everywhere. So it is high time to learn more about them from a book which has been long overdue. * Veronika Bilkova, Professor of International Law, Faculty of Law, Charles University in Prague *
The very word 'informers' generates both unease and fascination, and reckoning with the legacy of informing is one of the most important and intricate tasks of societies emerging from authoritarianism or conflict. Drumbl and Hola make a major contribution to our understanding of both why people turn informers and how societies do and should address the consequences. Deftly combining intimate life stories with broader theoretical and historical analysis, Informers Up Close focuses on the Czech case and brings it to life with original and resourceful empirical analysis and compelling prose, as well as opening up significant questions and insights that will be applicable also in many other cases, and should be of interest to readers from a variety of fields. * Ron Dudai, Author of Penalty in the Underground: The IRA's Pursuit of Informers *
By looking at collaborators with secret police, Drumbl and Hola fill a notable gap in the studies of transitional justice. Informers Up Close provides a fascinating qualitative study of dilemmas faced by ordinary and not so ordinary people in authoritarian regimes. * Roman David, Professor, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University, Hong Kong *
