State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary

William Walters calls for secrecy to be given a more central place in critical security studies and elevated to become a core concept when theorising power in liberal democracies. He challenges commonplace understandings of the covert and develops new concepts, methods, and themes for secrecy and security research. State Secrecy and Security offers readers a set of thinking tools to better understand the strange powers that hiding, revealing, lying, confessing, and professing ignorance put in motion.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 174 pages
Publication date: 09 January 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

In his groundbreaking book, "State Secrecy and Security: Refiguring the Covert Imaginary," William Walters makes a compelling case for secrecy to be accorded a more central position in critical security studies and elevated to the status of a core concept when theorizing power in liberal democracies. Walters' work challenges prevailing notions of the covert and presents fresh concepts, methodologies, and themes for research into secrecy and security.

Through in-depth investigations into various themes, including the mobility of cryptographic secrets, the power of public inquiries, the relationship between secrecy and place-making, and the aesthetics of secrecy within immigration enforcement, Walters expands our understanding of the covert and develops innovative concepts, methods, and frameworks for secrecy and security research.

Walters identifies the covert imaginary as both a constraint on our ability to think politics differently and a fertile ground for developing a deeper understanding of power.

"State Secrecy and Security" provides readers with a valuable set of thinking tools to grapple with the enigmatic powers unleashed by hiding, revealing, lying, confessing, and professing ignorance, among other operations of secrecy. This book will be an indispensable resource for scholars and students of security, secrecy, and politics, broadly speaking.

Weight: 349g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367773397