The expression 'whistle blowing' is a comparatively recent entry into the language of politics and public affairs, even though the sort of behavior to which it refers is not entirely new. It is employed here to mean the process by which insiders 'go public' with their claims of mismanagement by, or within, powerful organizations. Whistleblowing, differentiates from such correlated practices as in-house criticism, official and unofficial 'leaks' and the like. Nonetheless, this allows blowing the whistle to be interpreted as a type of behavior which has an extended, if definitely irregular, lineage. The history of whistleblowing is not smooth, in that such practices are sporadically isolated in time, unpredictable in their route and undefined in their appearance. However they are on the other hand available, for an account of historical connection, in the sense that such behavior stands witness to those powerful and deep-rooted communications, whereby the West declares the uniqueness of its own political custom and particularly those point of views, regarding individual rights, the claims of principles, the responsibilities of citizens, and the emancipatory power of reason.
 

What makes the practice of more general and theoretical concern, however, is that the very concept of whistleblowing is highly suggestive of, and responsive to, developing features of social structure and political procedure. This is a trait it shares with its facade, the notion of white-collar crime, so that the sense and importance of both ideas is contested. Therefore, in the United States, whistleblowing is partly protected by law, but, however, is likely to be punished with impunity. On the contrary, white-collar crime is officially subject to legal endorsement, but trials are so rare, as to have encouraged fears as to whether the term 'crime' can significantly be attributed to such conduct. The point to note is that the situation is not fixed with respect to either of these concepts. Thus there have been incremental improvement in the legal position of whistleblowers and an improved understanding of, and some initiatives against, white-collar crime.

There is an order to this chaos. The discontinuities which seem essential to whistleblowing are helpful in something other than the arts of dissimulation. The vague position of whistleblowing and the conflicting responses related with examples of such conduct are a sign of the troubled co-existence of challenging discourses and divergent social necessity, each of which carries its own kind of requirement.
 

The psychology of the whistleblower is seen as less significant than the social structure and assertion of motives; the foundationalist stress on the ethics of individuals gives way to spotlight on how individuals are placed within communication; and the numerical (in)frequency of such performance is viewed as less relevant than the amount and strength of the controversy it promotes. The outlook is that while it is ethics which is celebrated, it is pragmatism which is in fact, reinforced. The irony is that at the level of textual organization, these whistleblowing studies tend to repeat, rather than cross-examine, and the kind of difficulties which whistleblowers find themselves tackling with at the level of social practice.