Secrecy, evidence, and fear: Exploring the construction of intelligence power with Actor-Network Theory (ANT)

This article develops a critical notion of intelligence power, building on a developing rhetorical understanding of intelligence power within Critical Intelligence Studies (CIS) and intelligence’s impact already identified in the important case of Collin Powell’s 2003 United Nations (UN) speech. Using concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT), which perceives power as relationally constructed, the article argues the value of exploring how intelligence’s political impact can be conceptually tied to its institutional form and process. This approach steers Intelligence Studies (IS) away from an inward-looking understanding of intelligence, fundamentally involving intelligence’s impact with the political and social world in understanding what it is.