Congressional Power, Executive Privilege, and the Public's Right to Know, 1940-1990

FAIN: FB-51610-05

Kathleen Grace Donohue
Central Michigan University (Mount Pleasant, MI 48859-0001)

Focusing on the period from 1940 to 1990, "Balancing Acts" is a study of both the politics surrounding the public's right to know and the changing cultural and intellectual framework within which these politics took place. It examines the ways in which access to information became a battleground on which the legislative and the executive branches fought over the balance of power. But it also uses the debates inside and outside government over the public's right to know as a lens through which to examine how various groups of Americans rethought their ideas about democracy, citizenship and government in the decades following the Second World War.