Opening the black box :knowledge production of United States covert and clandestine operations under the Obama administration -

Abstract

This thesis argues the Obama Administration relies upon covert and clandestine operations to aggregate operational, bureaucratic, legal, and discursive authority. I demonstrate the ways in which information is mediated through two sites – the operational site and the sites of mediation in covert and clandestine operations. I argue the two are deeply complementary, and essential to such operations. This examination of the two sites of information mediation in covert and clandestine operations illustrates the extent to which the Obama Administration not only embraced the operational and information mediation logic of the “War on Terror”, but more crucially, the extent to which such logic was institutionalized under this Administration. I conceptualize covert and clandestine operations as Bruno Latour’s black box to show the ways information in these operations is mediated. I first narrow the focus to what I term the “technical content”, the operational site of the Horn of Africa to illustrate the extent of regional engagement required to conduct covert and clandestine operations, as well as the ways in which the operational infrastructure disappears from public view. The latter point is crucial, given it enables the oft-cited rationale, namely “light footprint” to suggest US military disengagement. On the other hand, the mediation of information flows through institutions and instruments for covert and clandestine operations illustrate the extent to which such operations aggregate bureaucratic, legal, and discursive authority in the hands in the executive. I label such institutions and instruments as the “institutional context”, and focus attention on these mechanics in the third chapter. I survey the primary institutional instruments available to the executive branch to illustrate how the Obama Administration obstructs information, employs legal inscriptions to legitimate actions, and attempts to close black boxes through discursive tactics at the site