Hidden Transcripts of the Powerful: Researching the Arts of Domination

Abstract

This article develops a submerged aspect of James C Scott’s work on ‘hidden transcripts’. Whereas Scott focused predominantly on the hidden transcripts of the powerless, here we propose a research agenda based upon studying hidden transcripts of the powerful. First, we define our terms. Second, we map existing literature, observing that although plenty of research exists into the public transcripts of dominant and subordinate groups, and that Scott initiated a productive research agenda into the hidden transcripts of powerless groups, research into hidden transcripts of powerful actors is lacking. We identify an assumption within this literature that because existing social institutions are already structured in such a way as to reflect and advance the interests of dominant groups, there is no need for separate spaces to foster the consciousness, cohesivness, and mobilisation of the powerful. Third, we ask how social scientists might study the hidden transcripts of the powerful, and what methodological challenges and opportunities such a research programme might present, identifying in particular the promising avenue of studying what we have chosen to call ‘transcripts hidden in plain sight’. Fourth, and finally, we question the epistemological status of these hidden transcripts, focusing on whether they can be used by social researchers as a reliable indicator of the ‘true’ consciousness of the social group that expresses them.

the poor sang one tune when they were in the presence of the rich and another tune when they were among the poor. The rich too spoke one way to the poor and another among themselves.

(Scott, 1990: ix–x)

Introduction

This article elaborates an underdeveloped aspect of Scott’s (1990) work on ‘hidden transcripts’: those spoken and acted out discourses that develop offstage from the hegemonic and ‘public transcripts’ of various social groups. Hidden transcripts are acted out, as well as spoken, in that they are frequently communicated not only by words, but through ‘intonation, silence, body tension, arched eyebrows, blank stares, and other protective arts of disguise and secrecy’ (Conquergood, 2002: 146). Whereas Scott focused primarily on understanding the hidden transcripts of the powerless, here we propose a research agenda based upon studying hidden transcripts of the powerful, a topic Scott (e.g., 1990: 11–13) identified, but failed to fully develop. Simmel (1896) suggested that relations of domination and subordination in general can be treated as what he called a social ‘form’, commenting that just as in nature the same ‘geometric forms occur within different substances’ (Simmel, 1909: 299), so in social life, the same social forms can be determined across empirically heterogenous social phenomena. In this article we suggest that hidden transcripts of the powerful can also be taken as a social form, which, while manifesting in empirically varied ways, can nevertheless be studied as a unified object of analysis.

First, we define our terms, focusing on the differences between hidden transcripts of subordinate and dominant groups, and how these diverge from the public transcript shared by both groups. Second, we map the existing literature, observing that although plenty of research exists into the public transcripts of dominant and subordinate groups, and that Scott himself initiated a productive research agenda into the hidden transcripts of powerless social groups, research into the hidden transcripts of powerful actors is, with only a few notable exceptions, lacking. We do, however, show that existing research into elite institutions, such as exclusive social spaces, work environments, legal codes, norms, clubs and organisations, holds great potential for examining hidden transcripts of powerful groups. Third, we ask how social scientists might go about studying the hidden transcripts of elites, and what methodological challenges and opportunities this research programme presents. Fourth, and finally, we question the epistemological status of hidden transcripts, focusing on whether they can be used by social researchers as a reliable indicator of the ‘true’ consciousness of the social group that expresses them.

Definitions

Scott (1990: 2) defines public transcripts ‘as a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominate’. Since domination, almost by definition, affords advantage, this public transcript constitutes ‘the self-portrait of dominant elites as they would have themselves seen’ (Scott, 1990: 17) and therefore amounts to discourse – in which he includes not only speech but also acts and gestures – of deference on the part of the subordinate, and of authority on the part of the dominant. The public transcript is shaped in favour of the dominant, naturalising their superordinate position, while concealing aspects of their rule they wish to hide.

Scott (1990: 2) describes how although these interactions, which often form the limit of what social scientists interested in power study, are ‘not positively misleading’, they are ‘unlikely to tell the whole story about power relations’, since it ‘is frequently in the interest of both parties to tacitly conspire in misrepresentation’. Both the dominant and the dominated, in other words, have a self-interest in maintaining ‘hegemonic appearances’ through upholding the public transcript. Though not an example used by Andersen (1956), the best-known fictional portrayal of this concerted and complementary public performance (and indeed its artificial and potentially fragile nature) is perhaps The Emperor’s New Clothes. In this parable, the emperor, his courtiers and the townsfolk, all conspire in maintaining the public transcript that the emperor is dressed in magnificent clothing. It is only the young child, free or ignorant of the power relations in which all the others are caught, who ruptures the pretence by voicing a hidden transcript aloud.

It is important to note that although both parties share an interest in the maintenance of the public transcript, the motivations lying behind their interests differ. For the dominant, maintaining the public transcript is motivated by the goal of dramatising their dominance, signalling that they are firmly in control. This is a form of ‘impression management’ (Goffman, 1956: 132–150) that the dominant let slip at their peril. Upholding the public transcript therefore serves a communicative function for the dominant, reminding others that ‘we are in charge’. For the dominated though, maintaining the public transcript is instead typically motivated by prudence: they play along to avoid the sanctions that may arise from undermining the dominant’s desired projections of social order, and to enjoy the prizes they accrue from confirming it. Collective performances of deference, in other words, are often tactical for the dominated, and no less communicative for being so, signalling that ‘we accept your social superiority’. Even though their motivations may differ, both parties nevertheless act in concert to reinforce this public transcript and make it appear as if it were the only transcript.

Scott argues for the need to look elsewhere to fully understand power relations, towards what he calls the hidden transcript. He defines this as ‘discourse that takes place “offstage”’ (Goffman, 1956: 4), which is ‘the privileged site for nonhegemonic, contrapuntal, dissident, subversive discourse’ (Goffman, 1956: 25). ¹ ‘The hidden transcript’, he states, ‘is thus derivative in the sense that it consists of those offstage speeches, gestures, and practices that confirm, contradict, or inflect what appears in the public transcript’ (Goffman, 1956: 4–5). The hidden transcripts of relatively powerless social groups – slaves, children, serfs, peasants, prisoners, untouchables – preoccupy Scott’s (1985, 1990) analyses and allow him to critique cruder theories of ideology or hegemonic incorporation, since they reveal how subordinate groups do not automatically share the beliefs and values of superordinate groups, even when it may publicly appear that they do. Scott intended to show that such groups were neither victims of false consciousness nor that they necessarily consented to domination. Revealing such hidden transcripts showed how subordinate groups developed their own nascent forms of oppositional consciousness, often generating formal or informal institutions (spaces, norms, established patterns of behaviour) in which such hidden transcripts could be shared.

Finally, Scott conceives the public/hidden and powerful/powerless distinctions in relative terms. Designating a transcript as ‘hidden’ does not mean it is hidden from everyone, but that it is ‘elaborated among a restricted “public”’ from which certain parties are excluded (Scott, 1990: 14). In this sense, the ‘backstage’ is still a stage, with its own audience; it is simply a stage that not everyone has access to, and is therefore ‘hidden’ from those that do not. A similar relativity applies to the powerful/powerless distinction in two respects. First, the same party may be dominant in one context yet dominated in another: a school bully may rule the roost in the playground yet transform into a victim of bullying at home. Second, the same party in the same social situation may be dominant in relation to one group yet dominated in relation to another: a prison guard may be superordinate to prisoners, while simultaneously subordinate to the prison warden.

What Is to Be Gained in Studying the Hidden Transcripts of the Powerful?

Studying the hidden transcripts of the powerful promises to offer a glimpse behind the veil of hegemonic appearances that elites have an interest in maintaining so as to reveal a more accurate picture of superordinate culture and power than would be evident from studying public appearances alone. Hidden transcripts are not merely an expression of power but also a mechanism through which that power is maintained on an ongoing basis. Studying such mechanisms should offer insights into whether a particular power relationship is as secure as it presents itself as being, therefore uncovering the possible contradictions inherent in domination. Scrutinising the hidden transcripts of powerful actors may, for instance, reveal such actors are not in fact as powerful – nor perhaps, as honourable – as they publicly present themselves as being. Revealing hidden transcripts, or indicators of them, may help uncover a fragility and vulnerability to power structures that present themselves as robust and impervious. The public display of superiority, authority and assuredness projected by powerful actors may, in other words, disclose itself as being as tactical in nature as the public obsequiousness, deference and obedience displayed by powerless actors. The degree to which both expressions are merely tactical can only be understood if we are able to compare such public transcripts with their subterranean counterparts.

There are significant differences between powerful and powerless groups with respect to what they have to lose from failing to play along with public transcripts, or having their hidden transcripts revealed. While exposure of the hidden transcripts of powerless groups can threaten violence, loss of livelihood, imprisonment and so on, Scott (1990: 11) claims that the powerful risk ‘only ridicule’, and therefore the ‘necessary posing of the dominant derives not from weaknesses but from the ideas behind their rule, the kinds of claims they make to legitimacy’. While we accept that the powerless are more threatened from exposure of their hidden transcripts, we depart from Scott in asserting that such exposure nevertheless also threatens dominant power. The symbolics of power (which constitute its ‘legitimacy’) is a key and substantive aspect of that power, since ‘legitimacy arises from the ‘observable need of any power, or even of any advantage of life, to justify itself’ (Weber 1978: 953). This means that some fraction of dominant power necessarily rests upon concealing its hidden transcript, and whatever the system of legitimacy within which the dominant root their dominance – be it holiness, bravery, the ‘divine right of kings’, superior force or democratic mandate – revealing the hidden transcript undermines such legitimacy and therefore threatens such power. Indications that this is the case come from the fact that the powerful invest so much in maintaining the public transcript and concealing the hidden. This is why, for instance, absolute dictators hold sham elections, why monarchs bother with pomp, why celebrities use super-injunctions, why corporations or politicians spend heavily on public relations or why royals engulfed in scandal engage in out-of-court settlements. In short, we assert that the powerful, albeit to varying degrees, rely upon public transcripts as one mechanism among others to maintain their power.

Having stated this, it is worth noting an apparent contradiction: in some cases, powerful actors seem to retain, or even enhance, their power following exposure of a hidden transcript (e.g. Rottinghaus, 2014: 382). This apparent contradiction, however, may occur because the revelation inadvertently reconfirms an element of the powerful actor’s legitimacy. For instance, a strongman despot whose legitimacy comes from their ability to terrorise a population may only reinforce their power when evidence of their violence is revealed. A politician whose legitimacy derives from ‘straight-talking’, might inadvertently reinforce their power when an accidental recording of their doing just that comes to light. While such exceptions exist, contraction rather than expansion of power via the revelation of hidden transcripts appears to be the rule.

Another definitional point worth noting is that the conceptual distinctions between ‘hidden’ and ‘public’ are misleading when understood in categorical terms. Rather than two separate realms of discourse, Scott (1990: 28) identifies that what in fact exists is a ‘spectrum of discursive realms’, which he refines further into four varieties of political discourse.

The first and second are, respectively, the public and hidden transcripts described above.

The third lies somewhere between these two extremes, which Scott (1990: 19) describes as ‘a politics of disguise and anonymity that takes place in public view but is designed to have a double meaning or to shield the identity of the actors’. As far as subordinate actors go, it includes ‘[r]umor, gossip, folktales, jokes, songs, rituals, codes, and euphemisms’ (Scott, 1990: 19). Transposing this onto the interstitial political discourse of the powerful, such a zone would also include public insinuation, dog-whistles, innuendos, wink-wink nudge-nudge politics and so on. Since this discourse is public, it presents fewer methodological difficulties to access than fully hidden transcripts, but likely more methodological challenges to interpret, since it exists, almost by definition, in some kind of cipher that needs deciphering. We have chosen to designate such public yet camouflaged transcripts, transcripts hidden in plain sight.

Fourth, and finally, Scott (1990: 19) identifies ‘the most explosive realm of politics’ as consisting in a rupture of ‘the political cordon sanitaire between the hidden and the public transcript . . . [which] obliterates the distinction by making the hitherto hidden transcript public’. When such relatively rare incidents occur with respect to hidden transcripts of the powerless, the response tends to either be repression from dominant actors, or else widespread political transformation. In The Emperor’s New Clothes example, the latter eventually occurs: the little child’s rupture of the hidden transcript into public awareness through crying out that the emperor ‘hasn’t got anything on’ is at first dismissed by his embarrassed father as ‘innocent prattle’, yet eventually ‘the whole town’ cries out the same refrain (Andersen, 1956: 248). Similar dramatic reactions follow ruptures of hidden transcripts of the powerful, through leaks, whistleblowing, the exposure of accidental recordings or so-called ‘smoking guns’ and so on. When such incidents occur, dominant actors are obliged to respond to salvage the legitimacy that the rupture threatened. Inquiries are demanded, public statements are called for and more or less credible explanations are given to halt the polluting force of what was meant to be hidden bursting through into public awareness.

Existing Research

The public transcript has occupied the focus of most conventional studies in the Carlyle mode of history, as well as research in mainstream political sociology, political science and international relations, especially when it has relied upon official records and statistics as its primary data source. There has, however, been some attention paid to the hidden transcripts of subordinate groups, including within critical traditions of history ‘from below’, anthropology, human geography, the sociology of everyday life and interdisciplinary research on spaces, publics and networks within which counterhegemonic ideas and alternative consciousness are developed.

One way of understanding the relationship between the public and hidden transcript has been through work that has sought to differentiate the ‘public sphere’ as a physical or mediated space in which actors openly assemble to discuss, debate and influence political action from other ‘backstage’ zones of political activity, often hidden from public scrutiny. Feminist and multiculturalist scholars have identified how marginalised groups have been disadvantaged within the public sphere or even excluded from it altogether (e.g. Modood, 2007; Young, 1990). Such scholars have argued that in actually existing societies it makes more sense to differentiate between ‘dominant’ and ‘subaltern’ public spheres (Fraser, 1990). Alternative public spheres are mechanisms by which subordinate groups have historically delineated their own spaces – whether through voluntary associations, religious institutions (Morris, 1984) or even charities (Goss, 2007) – as a response to their marginalisation from public life. Scholarship in this area has recognised how subordinate groups use such backstage spaces to rehearse their frontstage performances (Morgan, 2018: 462–463) and develop political consciousness in opposition to dominant societal ideas. Such ‘submerged networks’ (Melucci, 1989) of everyday social interactions are often where new political cultures are forged, and it is frequently a primary goal of social movements to amplify and give public expression to these variably concealed forms of oppositional culture (Massoumi, 2015; Morgan, 2020; Saguy, 2020).

Research into ‘free spaces’ also offers an account of alternative arenas between the private and public that can offer subordinate groups relative freedom from the interference or scrutiny of powerful groups, holding the potential to develop ‘oppositional consciousness’ (Evans and Boyte, 1992). This literature considers how free spaces provide networks, funds and repertoires of strategies and tactics (Tilly, 2006) that make movements of the powerless possible. Polletta’s (1999) extensive review of studies adopting the concept of ‘free spaces’ demonstrates the shared underlying assumption within this literature that such spaces are only useful for movements ‘from below’. How such spaces are adopted by powerful movements ‘from above’ is not typically considered (Cox and Nilsen, 2014). It is assumed that existing social institutions are already structured in such a way as to reflect and advance the interests of dominant groups, meaning there is no need for separate spaces to foster the consciousness and mobilisation of the powerful. This position is supported by influential political theory that critiques so-called ‘universal’ citizenship as in fact simply a reflection of the particularities of dominant groups (Young, 1990). In short, this literature assumes that the powerful have no need for hidden transcripts, since mainstream institutions already reflect the values, identities and interests of such groups.

While there are obvious cultural biases in favour of dominant groups within the public sphere, we also believe that such groups rely upon their own ‘free spaces’ to develop hidden transcripts that help sustain their identities, interests, solidarities and cultural cohesiveness. In what follows, we highlight research that shows how the powerful use a variety of institutions to foster networks, ideas and activities necessary for maintaining their domination, arguing that this research holds great potential for examining hidden transcripts of powerful groups.

Institutions of the Powerful

Though it does not occupy his focus, Scott (1990: 12) recognises that dominant groups develop their own institutions to pursue hegemonic agendas, reproduce privilege or simply provide ‘a place to relax from the formal requirements of their role’. Such institutionalisation occurs when patterns of social behaviour become routinised, standardised and formalised, so that distinct organisations, or groups with particular roles, norms, expectations or rules emerge, allowing powerful actors to reproduce or protect their power.

Marxists have argued that the most obvious historical institution to perform this role was the family, an institution that ensured that wealth and privilege were passed down a bloodline (Engels, [1884] 2010). The family was often helped in its purpose by other powerful institutions, such as the church and the state. More recently, and especially with the spread of democratic norms and the decline of the legitimacy of kin-based privilege, elites have increasingly used educational institutions to legitimise their social position (Bourdieu, 1996). Such institutions not only provide credentials, but also social networks that allow members of dominant classes to associate with other members of their class. Institutions such as secret societies and exclusive members clubs have also been created, often in response to increased social mobility to protect established classes against the claims of upcoming classes (Beckert, 2003), or simply to provide ‘an offstage social site where’ powerful actors ‘are no longer on display and can let their hair down’ (Scott, 1990: 12). While a decent body of literature exists on such institutions, their specific role in allowing the circulation of hidden transcripts remains understudied.

Social movement literature has demonstrated how movements that represent powerholders nurture institutions that allow them to protect and expand the bases of their privilege (Blee and Creasap, 2010; Cunningham et al., 2019; Massoumi, 2021; Sklair, 1997). Boies and Pichardo (1993: 57) suggest that ‘elite social movement organizations’, while neglected in both social movement and state theory, are ‘important agent[s] of social change in contemporary society’. Cox and Nilsen (2014: 68) refer to ‘social movements from above’ to describe the collective agency of those seeking to ‘maintain or extend the hegemonic position of dominant groups’, such as occurred within the movement behind the global establishment of neoliberalism (Slobodian, 2018).

Power structure research, initiated by Mills (1956) then later developed by Domhoff (1967, 1975, 2005) and Useem (1986) in the USA, and Scott (1982, 1991) in the UK, examines the formal and informal overlapping networks by which power is centralised and institutionalised. This research has been useful in establishing the degree of openness or closedness of elites and has offered ways to analyse processes by which elites secure their influence through shaping policy formation.

In recent work, Carroll et al. (2020) have drawn upon Gramsci’s notion of the ‘integral state’ to identify the importance of philanthropic foundations to managing dissent and legitimising class power. Sklair (1997) similarly demonstrates the importance to elites of gaining control across a range of institutional settings, showing how transnational corporate executives typically serve not only on corporate boards, but also boards of civil society organisations such as think-tanks, charities, arts, sports and cultural bodies, allowing them to extend their influence beyond the restricted business sphere.

Critical criminologists, inspired by Pearce’s (1976) work on the ‘crimes of the powerful’, have examined how institutional mechanisms allow powerful actors to engage in acts of deviance, including corporate crime, regulatory infractions (Tombs and Whyte, 2003), para-statal military violence (Jamieson and McEvoy, 2005; Sluka, 2010) and corruption (de Souza Martins, 1996; Green and Ward, 2004). In a rare application of the concept of ‘hidden transcripts’ to researching powerful actors, Greenhouse (2005) argues that the military tribunals set up for non-American citizens charged with terror offences following the 11 September attacks, offered an institutional avenue to extend the executive political and legal power of President Bush.

In sum, a wide variety of existing empirical research indicates how powerful groups create and use institutions to protect and advance their interests, guard against threats to their power whether from social change or active opposition, or otherwise conceal from public scrutiny any activity that, if made public, might delegitimatise their power. Though it has rarely been theorised as such, all of this research shows evidence of the existence of hidden transcripts. It also shows how elites create, capture and otherwise make use of a vast range of different institutional types, including legislative, social, cultural, economic, leisure, military, paramilitary and vigilante institutions. Analysing this work through the frame of ‘hidden transcripts of the powerful’ not only offers a way of drawing together currently disconnected streams of research, but also provides a theoretical tool to show how dominant power is not only given, but also actively produced and reproduced by those who hold it. While this thinking is identifiable in much of the research indicated, it remains implicit.

Methodological Challenges and Opportunities

In what follows, we address the methodological challenges and opportunities of researching hidden transcripts of powerful actors, focusing predominantly on transcripts that have ruptured the veil of secrecy, that is, the fourth variety of political discourse that Scott itemises, above. When these data are available, they are enormously helpful for understanding how hidden transcripts work, but by their very nature, such data are usually inaccessible to researchers and when they do appear, they often arrive in unverifiable form (did, for instance, Marie Antoinette really say ‘let them eat cake’?). For this reason, this section concludes by suggesting that a more reliable data source exists in Scott’s third variety of political discourse, what we have called transcripts hidden in plain sight, since while such transcripts are coded and therefore present challenges in terms of their interpretation, they are nevertheless public and therefore provide far more opportunities for researchers to access and verify.

Simmel ([1908] 1950) argued that secrecy allows those in control of others’ ignorance some quantum of power, which for him explained why it is often associated with high social status, and why dominant groups often do so much to ensure that vast swathes of their existence remains mysterious to the subordinate. Moreover, as Scott (1990: 12) writes, ‘[d]ominant groups often have much to conceal, and typically they also have the wherewithal to conceal what they wish’. Both governmental and private powerholders tend to have more control over the availability of information about themselves and others (Feenan, 2002) and often use their power and resources to secure their privacy, manage their public image and avoid unwanted scrutiny and regulation of their activities (Bell, 1978; Ozga, 2011). The UK government, for instance, has long used secrecy legislation, such as the Official Secrets Act, or so-called ‘D-Notices’, to hide ‘sensitive’ government information, and Fuller (1988: 99) has drawn attention to the US state’s role in creating and maintaining what she calls ‘forbidden research terrains’. Powerful private actors, such as economic elites (e.g. Kantola and Vesa, 2023) also routinely hide their behaviour. Celebrities, for instance, use Non-Disclosure Agreements to conceal abuse accusations (Weston, 2021), and corporations are legally constituted in such a way as to shield themselves from public disclosure (Tombs and Whyte, 2003). All these barriers to transparency create well-known methodological challenges in researching powerful actors (Williams, 1989), which are likely to be encountered by anyone aiming to investigate hidden transcripts of dominant groups.

Drawing on examples from researchers mostly working in the area of ‘elite studies’, we demonstrate that while there are indeed serious challenges to studying hidden transcripts of the powerful, there are also opportunities to examine the behind-the-scenes activity that sustains power (Higgins and Kunz, 2023). We can learn from these examples to develop a research agenda on hidden transcripts of the powerful and have identified five methodological approaches we think can strengthen research in this area: exploiting data leaks, practising elite ethnography, utilising institutionalised discovery practices, making use of increased digitalisation, and decoding transcripts hidden in plain sight.

First, intended leaks from whistle-blowers, or unintentional leaks from accidental information breaches, recordings or observations have produced a large reservoir of data on the hidden transcripts of powerful actors. Contemporary examples include testimony given as part of the #MeToo movement, the Wikileaks revelations and various WhatsApp message leaks, such as those contained in the 2020 UK Labour Party dossier. Such data sources are invaluable to our proposed research programme, but unfortunately too rare to rely upon in isolation.

Second, ethnographic research into elites (Deeb and Marcus, 2011; Falzon, 2009; Holmqvist, 2022; Marcus, 1983) promises to be particularly fruitful for researching hidden transcripts. Rivera’s (2016) ethnographic observations of behind-the-scenes recruitment practices of high-paying investment banks, management consultancies and law firms, identified what we would describe as a hidden transcript of markers of merit and prestige that impacted who was selected for jobs in the top firms. By observing the backstage decision-making processes of recruitment, Rivera shows that seemingly neutral measures of merit and talent in fact masked an array of sorting criteria that correlated with high parental income and education. Lamont (2010) has similarly used participant observation to open the ‘black box’ of judgement that powerful academics use when engaged in peer reviewing applications for research funding or fellowships in the social sciences, showing the competing standard of judgement, and how these tend to map onto different disciplinary backgrounds. In her ethnography of the hedge fund industry, Neely (2022) negotiated access through her experience of working in a Seattle hedge fund as a researcher and analyst. Returning as a sociologist, she demonstrates how the maintenance of white privilege and patriarchy are maintained through everyday mundane practices.

These researchers have demonstrated artful means of ethnographically researching the concealed spaces and decision-making processes of dominant actors in open ways, but in many cases overt research is simply not a viable option. However, university ethics committees only very exceptionally approve covert or investigative research, and when they do, it is typically regulated by extensive institutional controls and longwinded and bureaucratic justificatory procedures. These safeguards are no doubt important, but we believe there is a compelling case to be made for an expansion of such approaches when it comes to uncovering hidden transcripts of the powerful (see also Hammersley, 2014; Spicker, 2011).

Third, we propose utilising what Marx (1984) called ‘institutionalized discovery practices’ referring to the information generated through investigative, legislative and judicial bodies. While, as we outlined above, powerful actors have greater control over information, their control is not absolute. Transparency legislation exists in the form of conflict-of-interest registers and Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation. In the USA, where FOI legislation has a much longer history, there is a host of productive research that utilises such mechanisms (e.g. Churchill and Vander Wall, 1988; Lee, 2001; Price, 1998). Governmental and corporate archival records (e.g. Pak, 2013) – some of which have been generated through court disclosures – have been exploited for research programmes in human rights, pharmaceutical and tobacco research (e.g. Ewing et al., 2020; Hurt et al., 2009; Lentacker, 2021).

Fourth, technological innovation, especially in an age of ‘big data’ (Burrows & Savage, 2014), has created both further opportunities for the exposure of hidden transcripts, as well as further opportunities for hiding such transcripts, and possibilities for elites to create disinformation too (e.g. Tufekci, 2017). President Nixon’s impeachment, for instance, was triggered by his refusal to release voice-activated tape recordings of conversations in the White House, and more recently, camera phones have been used extensively to record, and then widely disseminate, previously hidden abuses of power, such as those that sparked the 2020 globalisation of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Such technologically inscribed research artefacts also include online public records, commercial archives (Friedman and Reeves, 2020), register data (Hansen and Toft, 2021) and the enormous digital footprints that exist of online communications and activity, such as the images shared by police officers of the murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry. Often such digital footprints are entirely public, as in the case of social media profiles, therefore constituting ‘open source intelligence’ that can be accessed by sociologists with relative ease.

Finally, although ruptures of hidden transcripts into the public realm are important sources of information for the research agenda we propose, given their relatively rare occurrence, we believe that studying the far more abundant ‘transcripts hidden in plain sight’ offers the most promising and reliable avenue for future research in this area. Scott (1990: 19) describes this arena as ‘a partly sanitized, ambiguous, and coded version of the hidden transcript’, which is nevertheless public, going on to state that ‘interpreting these texts which, after all, are designed to be evasive is not a straightforward matter’. This latter point is key, since while researchers gain a great deal in terms of accessibility when focusing on transcripts that are ‘hidden in plain sight’, they simultaneously tend to lose out on ease of interpretation, since by their very nature such transcripts require careful decoding. We see an example of such careful decoding in Said’s (1978) classic study of orientalism, which successfully decoded dominant depictions of the East as they appeared in western cultural and artistic artefacts, revealing the transcripts ‘hidden in plain sight’ that made up the occidental gaze. Another approach to methodological decoding comes from Douglas (1976: 57), who, in recognition that research subjects often have an interest in concealment, argued that we should not take their own accounts at face value, but instead adopt a more ‘investigative’, rather than ‘cooperative’ research approach, exercising similar suspicion to that displayed by police, private investigators, spies or journalists ‘in order to reveal the lies and deception that people present at the front stage of interactions’ (Douglas, 1976: 73). While many problems accompany Douglas’s proposal, such as a potentially unwarranted distrust towards research subjects, it may hold merit in decoding the accounts of powerful individuals who enact, produce or perform institutional cultures. Ho (2009) has achieved this decoding in her study of Wall Street by broadening her empirical data beyond the accounts given by investment bankers themselves. Her research draws upon Gusterson’s (1997: 116) proposal for the utility of ‘polymorphous engagement’, or ‘interacting with informants across a number of dispersed sites’ in order to successfully decode the testimony of powerful actors.

The Knowledge Status of Hidden Transcripts

As well as methodological challenges, studying ‘hidden transcripts’ also raises epistemological questions too. Some, for instance, have argued for the superior epistemological standpoint of dominated groups. ² One important question is the extent to which hidden transcripts offer a reliable indicator of ‘class consciousness’, which can be approached from at least two different angles. First, one can ask whether hidden transcripts reveal the objectively ‘true’ interests of particular classes; second, one can ask the more phenomenological question of whether they reflect whatever members of those particular classes think or feel to be true, whatever their ‘true’ interests may be. Examining each in turn, we conclude that the research agenda we are proposing would do well to bracket the former approach, while pursuing the latter.

The notion of ‘class consciousness’ has been hotly debated in the social sciences, especially with respect to the notion of ‘false consciousness’. False consciousness is the idea that the beliefs of a particular group are at odds with that group’s genuine interests, meaning that groups holding false consciousness often act against, or fail to act in pursuit of, their actual interests. While this idea has gained a great deal of purchase in radical social science, it has also generated much criticism. Two of the primary charges levelled against it have been based around the silent Other of false consciousness: true consciousness. First, that the idea of ‘false consciousness’ makes an unwarranted claim for the superior, ‘true’, knowledge of the social scientist or radical analyst, therefore treating ordinary actors as ‘cultural dupes’ (Lukes, 2011), and second, the Foucauldian objection that the notion of ‘true’ consciousness is itself entangled within, rather than sitting outside of, ‘regimes of power’ (Foucault, 2014).

While we see merit in both critiques, and without offering a detailed defence of this view here, our position is nevertheless that actors can be deluded about their own interests. In other words, we reject the claim made by pluralist political scientists that actors’ expressed beliefs or preferences necessarily reflect their actual interests and instead assert that actors can unconsciously internalise beliefs that help perpetuate their own domination (or dominance) since expressed preferences can themselves be shaped by power. This ‘shaping’ is what Lukes (1974) described as the ‘third dimension’ of power, through which ideology functions.

Beyond the notion that internalised beliefs may be contrary to a group’s actual interests, another claim is that publicly expressed beliefs are contrived modes of ‘impression management’, whereas what is expressed in the backstage of social life is somehow more authentic. This account suggests that public transcripts are mere artificial ‘performances’, to be treated with what Ricoeur (1977) described as a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’, whereas hidden transcripts are more dependable expressions of groups’ actual beliefs.

We find two significant problems with this approach. First, the fact that something is publicly performed does not automatically signal its inauthenticity. Social performance can both reflect and conceal underlying beliefs and can therefore be used as much to inform as it can to deceive. Recognition of social performance should not in itself prejudice our judgement of authenticity in one direction or another. Second, as we have noted above, hidden transcripts are just as much performances as public transcripts are – the only difference is that the audience to which they are performed is restricted. This restriction may give the impression that what is conveyed is therefore more authentic (since otherwise why would there be a need to conceal), but what is concealed should not be confused with what is authentic, since motives to conceal can operate at restricted levels too.

With respect to the hidden transcripts of the powerless, Scott rejects the notion that hidden transcripts are somehow ‘truer’ than public transcripts or represent a zone of freedom or authenticity, while public transcripts represent a zone of necessity and artificiality in which actors dissimulate to meet their goals. Instead, he sticks to the empirical point that where those that express hidden transcripts feel them to be more representative of their true beliefs, we can at least therefore claim a phenomenological truth to such expressions, even if we remain agnostic as to their epistemological truth-status.

Following Scott in this respect, we see this empirical question of understanding the consciousness that elites in fact hold, that is, the consciousness that we have warrant to believe is phenomenologically true to them, as a more productive initial object of analysis for our proposed research agenda. Such warrant may not, of course, always be present, even when hidden transcripts of the powerful are fully revealed. Yet where it is, determining the extent to which powerful actors share a coherent set of ideas, which they take to be reflective of their collective interests, allows political sociologists to take a measure of elite unity. ³

Studying hidden transcripts therefore offers an empirical research agenda to assess the (dis)unity of dominant groups. It provides a test, for instance, for Williams’s (1958) suggestion that in response to industrial capitalism, an ethos of solidarity grew out of shared working-class experience, at the same time as an ethos of competition grew out of bourgeois experience and expediency. It also promises an empirical assessment of Simmel’s ([1908] 1950: 348) claim that the very fact of collective secrecy among a group – or what for our purposes might be thought of as the sharing of a hidden transcript – held the ability to unify that group through the ‘internal quality of reciprocal confidence’ it created. While Scott’s research revealed how sharing hidden transcripts helped build mutual trust, and therefore bolster a sub rosa class consciousness among subordinate groups, whether the same dynamic applies among powerful social groups is a hypothesis ripe for testing. Whatever the conclusions of such research, we propose that expanding the sociological gaze beyond public and official transcripts to also include hidden transcripts of the powerful, and showing where the two coincide or part ways, can only enrich our overall understanding of power relations.

Conclusion

Developing a submerged aspect of Scott’s classic work on domination and the arts of resistance, this article has defined a new research agenda for sociologists interested in ‘studying up’ (Nader, [1969] 1974). We have shown how currently disconnected research has the opportunity to cohere around a shared, and theoretically unifying, research object: hidden transcripts of the powerful. We have indicated how hidden transcripts can become routinised into patterned social institutions, explored methodological challenges and opportunities in researching them, and identified epistemological questions that arise when considering their implications for questions of dominant class consciousness.

The research agenda we have proposed addresses a central question lying at the heart of sociological enquiry: how social order is produced, and what methods social actors use to do so (e.g. Garfinkel, 1967; Schutz, 1972). If domination is understood as an ‘ongoing, practical achievement’ (Garfinkel, 1991: 11), our research agenda promises to answer the question of how at least one aspect of this order is in fact achieved. Moreover, since we have suggested that hidden transcripts constitute what Simmel (1909) called a social ‘form’, our research agenda also promises to link the focused in situ study of the heterogenous production of domination to broader generalisations that cover structural similarities across empirically varied cases. While a great deal of research has been aimed at mapping the contours of public transcripts of domination – who dominates whom, how they express this domination, how it is challenged and so on – we have argued that too little attention has been paid to understanding hidden transcripts of the powerful: those forms of speech and action that occur offstage, and which promise to reveal how power is made and maintained as an ongoing achievement. We have argued that if sociologists are to understand how unequal social order is produced and maintained, studying hidden transcripts of power, and specifying where and how they diverge from their public counterparts, will be an indispensable element of this endeavour.