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It has been said that the 2010 WikiLeaks disclosures mark 'the end of secrecy in the old fashioned, cold-war-era sense'. This is not true. Advocates of WikiLeaks have overstated the scale and significance of the leaks. They also overlook many ways in which the simple logic of radical transparency – leak, publish, and wait for the inevitable outrage – can be defeated in practice. WikiLeaks only created the illusion of a new era in transparency. In fact the 2010 leaks revealed the obstacles to achievement of increased transparency, even in the digital age. Points for practitioners Some commentators have regarded the WikiLeaks disclosures of 2010 as evidence of a broader breakdown in the conventional mechanisms for controlling government-held information. This new world has been described as one of 'radical transparency'. But claims about the breakdown of old-style secrecy are overwrought. This article says that the significance of the WikiLeaks disclosures has been exaggerated, and provides reasons why it will be harder to achieve radical transparency, especially in the security sector of government.

In 1942, Joseph Harris anticipated that the United States would develop a highly centralized and rationalized welfare state. The forecast was largely mistaken. The United States did develop an expansive national security apparatus that was relatively centralized and rationalized. By contrast, domestic policies were unevenly developed, and often highly decentralized in design. Harris's forecast was unduly influenced by his own observations of trends immediately before World War II. He underestimated the powerful underlying forces that have historically checked centralization in the United States, and regained strength in the postwar period.
Guest editors' note: In 1942, the University of Chicago Press published a book edited by Leonard D. White titled The Future of Government in the United States. Each chapter in the book presents predictions concerning the future of U.S. public administration. In this article, Alasdair Roberts examines Joseph Harris's predictions on the future of "administrative management" in that book, comments on whether Harris' predictions were correct, and then looks to the future to examine public administration in 2020.

Throughout the era of economic liberalization (1978–2007), a significant amount of governmental power was transferred to technocrat‐guardians who were carefully buffered from elected officials. Democratic processes, it was said, had to be disciplined through such reforms if nations were to thrive in a globalized economy. This way of thinking about reform was already under assault before the financial crisis, and it was even more widely questioned during the crisis, as critics doubted the quality of technocratic decision making. This mode of reform—characterized as a "logic of discipline"—will survive the crisis, but it is unlikely to have the influence that it enjoyed during the era of liberalization.

American commentators have criticized European leaders for failing to deal firmly and swiftly with the eurozone's sovereign debt crisis. These commentators forget the lessons of American history. The United States experienced a similar crisis following the financial panic of 1837. Eight states defaulted and political turmoil intensified, undermining stability in several states and the federal system itself. The restoration of economic and political order was a prolonged and painful process, as enraged voters confronted the costs of inaction and accepted new constraints on democratic processes. Will the European crisis play out similarly?