Political Planomenon and the Secret Thereof

Abstract

Taking Derrida's notion of the ‘secret’ and Deleuze's immanence' as its starting point, this essay proposes a reading of Marx's living labour' that critiques Hardt and Negri's understanding of political subjectivity. In doing so, the essay examines the possibilities of rethinking political agency in terms of a ‘powerless power’.     

The Secret of West Indian Success

For nearly a century, black immigrants from the West Indies have enjoyed greater economic success than African Americans. Several explanations have been proposed for this trend, but until now, none of these explanations have been subjected to systematic scrutiny. Recent efforts to adjudicate among them indicate that West Indian success can be attributed entirely to the “selectivity of migration”. This phrase refers to the tendency of people who migrate to be more talented and determined than the compatriots they leave behind. One implication of this discovery is that sympathetic observers should stop exhorting African Americans to behave more like West Indians. Such pleas are inappropriate because West Indian success is a consequence of choosing to move, not a consequence of Caribbean birth. A second implication is that persons of West Indian background remain vulnerable to racism. The new findings provide no evidence that positive selection protects West Indians from the negative stereotypes that Americans associate with black skin.

The Ultra Secret and Churchill's War Memoirs

Ultra was one of the best-kept secrets of World War Two, concealed for nearly 30 years. A major reason, this article argues, was the precedent set by Churchill's war memoirs, published in 1948–54. The intelligence authorities feared that, if Churchill disclosed anything about Ultra, this would be a green light to those who had worked at Bletchley Park. Using documentation from the Churchill Archives and the Cabinet Office files, the article examines the pressure they successfully put on Churchill and the way Ultra was edited out of his memoirs, looking particularly at big stories such as the battle for Crete, operation Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor and the D-Day deception campaign.     

Germany and Chongqing: Secret Communication during WWII

The currently accepted narrative regarding WWII in China suggests that Nationalist China and the Third Reich had no diplomatic connections after their official break of diplomatic relations in July 1941. Based on archival material from Germany, China and Taiwan, this article challenges this narrative. As I hope to demonstrate, communications between Germany and China continued well after July 1941 through back channels. From Switzerland, Chinese agents maintained connections with the German party intelligence service (RSHA), and Germany acted as a mediator between China and Japan. It is the role that intelligence personnel played in maintaining this communication channel and their role in clandestine Sino-German relations, which form the foundation of this paper.     

Transforming Analysis: The Intelligence Community's Best Kept Secret

This article argues that analytic practices and processes within the US intelligence community have undergone far more fundamental reform than the public or scholarly communities recognize. It identifies the dimensions of this ‘Analytic Transformation’ and explains the reasons for optimism about the future.     

TICOM: The Last Great Secret of World War II

Recent releases from the National Security Agency reveal details of TICOM, the mysterious 1945 operation targeting Germany's cryptologic secrets. Often mentioned by such authors as Kahn, Bamford, Parrish and Aldrich, for the first time the public has access to this information. This article provides a review in greater depth than has been previously covered in the open literature of the history of the TICOM operation, and its resulting intelligence, including the Germans' efforts against Soviet communications. In addition, some comments are provided on why TICOM has remained classified long after other similar information from World War II was declassified, and why locating TICOM documents is still difficult.     

Remote Electronic Voting: Free,Fair and Secret?

Most of the debate surrounding remote electronic voting has focused on technical issues such as security and feasibility. This article examines the equally important issue of whether voting outside the context of the supervised polling place meets the legal and normative standards required of democratic elections. Our conclusion is that if voting that takes place in an unsupervised context, it is virtually impossible to guarantee that it will be carried out in secret, and that lack of secrecy constitutes a serious violation of the principles of freeness and fairness that govern elections in democratic states. This argument also has implications for postal voting, which are discussed in brief.     

Confessing Secrets: Secret Communication and the Origins of Modern Science

During the Renaissance there was an explosion of interest in secret communication when political intrigue and war intersected with new scientific developments. This article shows how leaders of the Scientific Revolution who espoused openness in science, reconciled that ethos with the need for secrecy in affairs of state.     

Why Underachievers Dominate Secret Police Organizations: Evidence from Autocratic Argentina

Autocrats depend on a capable secret police. Anecdotal evidence, however, often characterizes agents as surprisingly mediocre in skill and intellect. To explain this puzzle, this article focuses on the career incentives underachieving individuals face in the regular security apparatus. Low-performing officials in hierarchical organizations have little chance of being promoted or filling lucrative positions. To salvage their careers, these officials are willing to undertake burdensome secret police work. Using data on all 4,287 officers who served in autocratic Argentina (1975–83), we study biographic differences between secret police agents and the entire recruitment pool. We find that low-achieving officers were stuck within the regime hierarchy, threatened with discharge, and thus more likely to join the secret police for future benefits. The study demonstrates how state bureaucracies breed mundane career concerns that produce willing enforcers and cement violent regimes. This has implications for the understanding of autocratic consolidation and democratic breakdown.