AHA Session 84
Friday, January 8, 2027: 10:30 AM-12:00 PM
Rhythms Ballroom III (Sheraton New Orleans, 2nd Floor)
Chair:
Edward Cohn, Grinnell College
Panel:
Mark Drumbl, Washington and Lee University
Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz, Harvard University
Howard Liu, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Tatiana Vagramenko, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and University College Cork
Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz, Harvard University
Howard Liu, University of South Carolina, Columbia
Tatiana Vagramenko, Barcelona Supercomputing Center and University College Cork
Session Abstract
The study of political police informing around the world has been a key part of the study of centralized single-Party states, authoritarian governance, and political repression. In this panel, four researchers working on the modern histories of Czechoslovakia (Mark Drumbl), Taiwan (Howard Liu), and the USSR (Tatiana Vagramenko and Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz), will discuss several questions related to the social and institutional history of informing, focusing on those of informer motivations and of the police process of selecting valuable assets and keeping them safe. The first set of questions in this roundtable will examine the role of patriotism in informer motivation and the perspectives of informers and state on patriotic recruitment. To what extent have the various modern political police organizations sought to and succeeded in recruiting informers based on patriotic motivations? How do informers perceive their own motivations? Mark Drumbl’s presentation will discuss how the language of patriotism used in official documents often conceals or legitimizes other types of motivations. Tatiana Vagramenko will explain how the Soviet state and political police officers described and discuss patriotism as they selected effective informers. Finally, Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz will explore the extent to which historians can observe the extent of informers’ patriotic feelings and their degree of authenticity from the political police documents. The second set of questions of this roundtable address the practices of assessing informers and ensuring informer secrecy. How did the political police determine who would be an effective informer? How did officers protect valuable assets from discovery? Howard Liu will present his work on the ways police officers preserve informer secrecy while acting on valuable intelligence. Tatiana Vagramenko will explain how the Soviet state came to fixate on education level as a measure of informer effectiveness. Mark Drumbl will examine the personal connection and social navigation within the relationships between secret police agents and “their” informers. Sophia Kalashnikova Horowitz will investigate how police what investigations of breaches of secrecy reveal about the motivations of informers. The roundtable will explore the use of police documents to understand the perspective on informer work of police handlers and of informers themselves. This roundtable will invite researchers of political conflict and of political and criminal policing in contexts around the globe to discuss questions of the motivations and nature of citizens' collaboration with state agents.
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