2025/02/17 by Jack Duffield · 2 voices
Social Sciences · #Global Peace and Security Dynamics #Intelligence, Security, War Strategy #International Relations and Foreign Policy
paper · doi:10.1080/02684527.2025.2461901
openalex publication_date 2025/02/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
This article proposes a narrative-based approach to understanding why states choose covert action. Drawing on narratology and securitisation theory, it argues that states employ covert action to shape and escalate security narratives, leveraging characteristics like tacit attribution and perceived severity to influence key audiences. This approach challenges the rationalist, risk-led perspective which dominates the field, and addresses the paradox of implausible deniability. It situates covert action within a cyclical process of narrative, power, and action, explaining how states use it to secure legitimacy and escalate security narratives rather than simply mitigate risks. The benefits of this approach are demonstrated through analysis of Israeli covert operations against Iran, showing how narrative considerations drive decisions to undertake actions that defy traditional rationalist explanations. The article bridges gaps between covert action scholarship and wider international relations theory, and unifies existing narrative-based proposals into a robust foundation for further research both within and beyond the study of unacknowledged state activity.