Secrecy games, power, and resistance in global politics

Van Veeren, Elspeth, Stevens, Clare ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5685-7930 and Senu, Amaha 2024. Secrecy games, power, and resistance in global politics. Review of International Studies 10.1017/S0260210524000275

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Abstract

In contrast to a view of secrecy as a tool of statecraft, where the game of ‘covering/uncovering’ dominates as the central way of interpretating secrecy’s power, we set out ‘secrecy games’ as an approach for understanding secrecy’s power and influence. To do so, we offer a set of three games to illustrate the more varied ways that secrecy operates, and draw attention to the ways in which non-state actors use secrecy and shape its effects. In particular, we offer an analysis of: 1) the secrecy games of tunnelling in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role of mobility as part of secrecy; 2) the secrecy game of camouflage and how stowaways blend in to facilitate access to global shipping routes; and 3) the secrecy game of maze-running and maze-making within urban warfare. Drawing these together, we show how secrecy involves a wider set of actors, practices, and associated knowledge-(un)making strategies than currently understood within International Relations. In turn, this expanded understanding of secrecy helps to make sense of the more complex ways in which secrecy is presented, used, resisted, and transformed – including and especially as a force that limits sovereign power – and, therefore, as central to what shapes global politics.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Cardiff Law & Politics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) J Political Science > JZ International relations
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0260-2105
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	13 May 2024
Date of Acceptance:	12 December 2023
Last Modified:	05 Jun 2024 11:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165164

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