Less-developed countries and transition economies wish to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), but are often handicapped by their weak governance structures, i.e. by insecurity of property rights and contracts. Potential investors and governments therefore attempt to devise alternative special arrangements and institutions that imperfectly substitute for good overall governance. The volume and form of investments adapts to the conditions and institutions of governance. Moreover, firms that have experience of coping with poor governance in their home country enjoy some advantage when investing in other host countries with similarly weak governance; this helps explain the emergence of outward FDI from developing countries. This lecture presents an overview of these issues and the related literature, and develops a simple theoretical model to improve our understanding of the emergence of multinational firms from developing countries.

The concept of secrecy as a mechanism for not providing government information, on the one hand, and the commitment to openness of government, on the other, reflect certain historical understandings of the relationship between a government, citizens, officials and information. Within democratic systems of government secrecy has been an essential ingredient irrespective of the existence or otherwise of a written Constitution (eg. US and the UK). The transparency ‘explosion’ of recent decades both in rhetoric and in law has been matched by a parallel growth in secrecy regulation and practice at all levels of government, including, in Europe, supranational government (the EU). Leaking has always had a symbiotic relationship with secrecy. What has changed in the information age is that (leaked) information can be shared right across the globe through the Internet in an unstoppable fashion (Wikileaks). This lecture focuses on the understudied phenomenon of government secrecy, its nature, structure, categories and its multiple layers. These are explored from the perspective of (representative) democracy and of constitutional law. The basic argument is that secrets can be protected more effectively and more legitimately if government secrecy is reduced overall. This will mean more ‘shallow’ (less deep) secrets, refining access control and introducing second order disclosure requirements in the context of institutional checks and balances.

The lecture traces a series of political, bureaucratic, and military transformations that have, over the past forty years, transformed the American presidency into a potential platform for charismatic extremism and bureaucratic lawlessness. Watergate, Iran-Contra, and President Bush’s legitimation of torture may well be prelude to worse breakdowns in the future – unless the presidency can be fundamentally reformed.