No Single Point of Failure: Organizational Culture as a Discursive Formation within U.S. Intelligence Affairs

Author:

• Hamilton Bean (Univ of Colorado, Boulder)

Abstract:

Both U.S. intelligence officials and intelligence studies scholars claim that "organizational culture" is a cause of "intelligence failure" and the proper locus of post-9/11 intelligence reform efforts. Drawing on poststructuralist perspectives that theorize "organizational culture" as a "regime of truth," this essay demonstrates how the discourse of "organizational culture" delimits stakeholders' understandings of accountability and what constitutes necessary, correct, or effective intelligence reform. By exploring institutional struggles over the meanings of "culture," "systems," and "accountability," this essay contributes to possibilities for re-conceptualizing post-9/11 intelligence reform as a discursive phenomenon.