Open Access and Sensitive Social Sciences Data in Different Legislative Contexts: The Case of Strategic Selection “Elite” Interviewing in Sweden

Abstract

Open access has moved from the periphery to the mainstream in the last few years, and most recently there have been calls to make research data “accessible, useable and reusable”. While there are many good arguments for this development, including that it makes the research process more transparent and enables others to re-use the data collected, it also has negative implications for social science research in certain contexts. The case addressed here is “elite” interviewing in the context of conducting research in Sweden. In this case there is already a strong legislative focus on openness with implications for research ethics. This suggests that open data access implementation, particularly in the context of specific legislative frameworks, needs to be reviewed to ascertain ethically correct interviewee and research subject protection in the social sciences.