Freedom of Information and Social Science Research Design

This multidisciplinary volume demonstrates how Freedom of Information (FOI) law and processes can contribute to social science research design across sociology, criminology, political science, anthropology, journalism and education. Comparing the use of FOI in research design across the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa, it provides readers with resources to carry out FOI requests and considers the influence such requests can have on debates within multiple disciplines. In addition to exploring how scholars can use FOI disclosures in conjunction with interview data, archival data and other datasets, this collection explains how researchers can systematically analyse FOI disclosures. Considering the challenges and dilemmas in using FOI processes in research, it examines the reasons why many scholars continue to rely on more easily accessible data, when much of the real work of governance, the more clandestine but consequential decisions and policy moves made by government officials, can only be accessed using FOI requests.

Kevin Walby is Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Winnipeg, Canada. He is the author of Touching Encounters: Sex, Work and Male-for-Male Internet Escorting and the co-author of Municipal Corporate Security in International Context as well as A Criminology of Policing and Security Frontiers. He is the co-editor of Access to Information and Social Justice: Critical Research Strategies for Journalists, Scholars and Activists; Brokering Access: Power, Politics and Freedom of Information Process in Canada; The Handbook of Prison Tourism; Corporatizing Canada: Making Business Out of Public Service; National Security, Surveillance, and Terror: Canada and Australia in Comparative Perspective; Policing Cities: Urban Securitization and Regulation in a 21st Century World and Corporate Security in the 21st Century: Theory and Practice in International Perspective. He is co-editor of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons.

Alex Luscombe is a PhD Candidate in criminology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He has published widely on issues of policing, corruption, secrecy and Freedom of Information law in Canada and beyond. His past research has appeared in Social Forces, British Journal of Criminology, Sociology, International Political Sociology, Canadian Journal of Criminology & Criminal Justice, Policing & Society, Criminology & Criminal Justice, as well as a number of other academic journals and edited volumes. He serves on the editorial board of Criminological Highlights, a University of Toronto publication aimed at providing criminal justice practitioners with an accessible overview of recent criminological research. He is also a Junior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College.