“The Dark Knight and the National Security State” Rodger A. Payne Professor and Chair Department of Political Science University of Louisville Louisville, KY 40292
[email protected] Prepared for a panel on “Images of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism” for the joint Annual Meeting of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association and the International Security and Arms Control Section of the American Political Science Association; Austin, TX; November 14-15, 2014. Portions of this paper were presented at the joint Tenth International Association of Word and Image Studies Conference and Twenty-First Annual Scottish Word and Image Group Conference, University of Dundee, Scotland, August 11-15, 2014. “The Dark Knight and the National Security State” In the mid-1960s, Aaron Wildavsky made a now well-known claim that the U.S. has one President, but two presidencies. On defense and foreign policy, in contrast to the domestic policy arena, the President has great success controlling the course of policy.1 Indeed, scholars critical of the American “national security state” have for decades emphasized the dangers to democracy posed by an alleged “imperial presidency.”2 The executive branch’s security policy apparatus features a “behemoth institutional complex,” which includes the enormous resources of the Pentagon, a very large array of intelligence agencies, and significant elements of national and transnational law enforcement.3 Some scholars worry that not even the democratically elected President controls national security decision-making. Legal scholar Michael J. Glennon, in his lengthy explanation of why “national security policy has scarcely changed from the Bush to Obama Administration,” focuses attention on what he calls a “double government.” While the United States’ constitutionally-established institutions are well-known, Glennon argues that real power in this issue area resides with “the network of executive officials who manage the departments and agencies responsible for protecting U.S.