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Management Communication Quarterly 2015, Vol. 29(4) 512 –538

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Article

Deconstituting al-Qa’ida: CCO Theory and the Decline and Dissolution of Hidden Organizations

Hamilton Bean1 and Ronald J. Buikema2

Abstract This study reconceptualizes the decline and dissolution of hidden organizations using the four flows model of constitutive communication. Analyzing internal al-Qa’ida documents captured during the 2011 U.S. raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama Bin Laden, this study explains how losses of control over the flows of membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning have both reflected and reinforced al-Qa’ida’s decline. Interventions inspired by a communicative constitution of organization (CCO) perspective are proposed as a way to accelerate al-Qa’ida’s dissolution. The implications of the four flows model for both counterterrorism strategy and theorizing hidden organizations are discussed.

Keywords hidden organizations, al-Qa’ida, communicative constitution of organization, counterterrorism, organizational decline

1University of Colorado Denver, Denver, USA 2The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, USA

Corresponding Author: Hamilton Bean, University of Colorado Denver, Campus Box 176, P.O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, USA. Email: [email protected]

597300 MCQXXX10.1177/0893318915597300Management Communication QuarterlyBean and Buikema research-article2015

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Hidden organizations often tilt toward socially undesirable forms and can include entities such as terrorist groups, crime syndicates, gangs, hate groups, and cults. These types of hidden organizations can cause immense harm to people and property. As a result, many government authorities, citizens, and scholars share an interest in understanding how specific hidden organizations can be dismantled. The causes and processes of organizational decline and dissolution nevertheless remain obscure (Cameron, Kim, & Whetten, 1987; Serra, Ferreira, & de Almeida, 2013; Trahms, Ndofor, & Sirmon, 2013). In studying nonhidden/transparent organizations, management scholars usually describe decline and dissolution as attributable to the inability of organiza- tional leaders to (a) recognize internal and external threats and pressures in a timely way (Gopinath, 2005; Lorange & Nelson, 1987), (b) reshape organi- zational culture and processes in response to changing conditions (Schein & Kampas, 2004), or (c) ameliorate their own counterproductive psychological traits that hasten failure (Carmeli & Sheaffer, 2009). In studying the decline of terrorist organizations, scholars usually focus on “desistance” from violent attacks (e.g., a transition to legitimate political processes; Cronin, 2006; Miller, 2012); the influence of regional, socioeconomic, and political factors (Blomberg, Engel, & Sawyer, 2010); or police and counterterrorism mea- sures (Jones & Libicki, 2008).

These dominant perspectives do not well account for the role of communi- cation. Scholars know surprisingly little about the kinds of communication that stakeholders can use to accelerate organizational decline and dissolution (Manheim, 2000). This study advances a perspective on organizing, commu- nicative constitution of organization (CCO; Putnam & Nicotera, 2009) as a theoretical intervention that can enable stakeholders to use communication to better understand and accelerate the decline and dissolution of hidden organi- zations. By communication, we refer to “the process in which contextualized actors use symbols and make interpretations to coordinate and control both their own and others’ activity and knowledge, which are simultaneously medi- ated by, and productive of, ‘texts’” (Kuhn, 2008, p. 1232). As Weick (2013) explained, texts and conversations transform ambiguous activities and vague understandings into situations that are comprehensible and can, in turn, serve as a springboard for future action and knowledge. Taylor and Van Every (2000) similarly claimed that texts and conversations served as the “site and surface” of organizing. It follows that texts and conversations must also be the site and surface of disorganizing. Drawing upon this premise, Schoeneborn and Scherer (2010) theorized that the destabilization of terrorist organizations could be accomplished by creating ambiguity around mass media reports of terrorism. Scholars affiliated with Arizona State University’s Consortium for Strategic Communication (CSC) have also made significant contributions to

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combating violent extremism using narrative approaches (Corman, Trethewey, & Goodall, 2008). These scholars have explored the constitutive functions of mass media and strategic communication. However, several important ques- tions remain unanswered, including (a) what kinds of communication actually constitute terrorist organizations such as al-Qa’ida? (b) what are the theoreti- cal possibilities for communicatively deconstituting terrorist organizations? and (c) how can authorities use knowledge of (a) and (b) to inform and develop counterterrorism strategy? We turn to CCO as a theoretical perspective because it helps to simultaneously answer all three questions.

In this study, we analyze the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point’s 2012 report, “Letters From Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?” (Lahoud et al., 2012) and translations of the 17 declassified al-Qa’ida docu- ments that serve as the basis of that report. These 17 documents were publicly released in 2012 from the trove captured during the 2011 U.S. raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Osama Bin Laden. In February 2014, al- Qa’ida officially renounced connection with the Islamic State of Iraq and al- Sham (ISIS), which has risen to prominence. However, according to a joint U.S. National Science Foundation and Department of Defense project admin- istered by Stanford University (“Mapping Militant Organizations”), there are still 21 active organizations linked to al-Qa’ida. The global threat of terrorism in general, and al-Qa’ida-linked groups in particular, has reshaped the politi- cal and economic contexts of many commercial, government, and nonprofit enterprises (Horgan & Braddock, 2012). Such conditions make the decline and deconstitution of terrorist organizations an appropriate subject of inquiry for organizational communication scholars.

Our research contributes to scholarship regarding hidden organizations by responding to Scott’s (2013) call to investigate how “revealing and conceal- ing of information are related to organizational performance and even sur- vival” (p. 215). Two areas of literature provide the conceptual foundation for this investigation: the organization of al-Qa’ida and CCO theory. After syn- thesizing this literature, we describe our methods. We then present an analy- sis of the Abbottabad documents and a reinterpretation of portions of the CTC’s report to identify CCO’s potential for understanding al-Qa’ida’s decline as a communicative phenomenon. We then describe the implications of this perspective for hastening the dissolution of al-Qa’ida, as well as deconstituting other types of hidden organizations.

Organizing al-Qa’ida and CCO Theory

Scott’s (2013) transparent, shaded, shadowed, dark continuum established that terrorist organizations are often categorized as “dark” in that they tend to

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cultivate anonymity, their members tend to conceal their affiliation, and their leaders tend to communicate with a limited audience. However, “mostly shadowed” terrorist organizations, such as al-Qa’ida, seek to influence nonlo- cal audiences. Although terrorist organizations desire publicity for their acts of violence, they usually attempt to conceal their members’ identity from law enforcement and the general public. Scott (2013) also noted that although terrorist organizations may strive for public recognition and legitimacy, they usually operate in “clandestine ways” (p. 38). Stohl and Stohl (2011) defined clandestine organizations as collectives whose members keep their affilia- tions secret, whose internal activities and governance structures operate out- side of public view, and where traces of the existence of the organization eventually become publicly known or rumored. The authors acknowledged that al-Qa’ida has been “constituted in a variety of ways, embodying multiple organizational types with varying degrees of specificity,” yet they concluded that al-Qa’ida was a political, institutional, and economic entity grounded in historical processes (p. 1206). Nevertheless, Osama Bin Laden himself once denied organizing al-Qa’ida, claiming that the “organization” moniker was a Western imputation (Allouni, 2014). As a result, ontological clarification is warranted.

The work of Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) supports the categorization of al-Qa’ida as an organization. The authors define organization as a decided order that includes one or more of the elements of membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions. For Ahrne and Brunsson, “formal” organi- zations evidence all five elements. The presence of just one element, how- ever, constitutes a “partial” organization, which is conceptually distinct from a “network.” A network, the authors state, is often “defined in terms of its informality, lack of boundaries and hierarchical relations, and is ascribed with qualities such as spontaneity and flexibility” (p. 88). In its past and pres- ent, al-Qa’ida has evidenced one or more of the organizational elements of membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions. To produce suc- cessful, high-impact attacks, even “partial” terrorist organizations need to coordinate activity (Acharya & Marwah, 2010). al-Qa’ida’s ambiguous onto- logical status can therefore be explained by fluctuations in its relative partial- ness at any given point in time.

Complicating matters, external stakeholders may seek to organize elements of al-Qa’ida. For example, as Ahrne and Brunsson (2011) explained, “If some- one wants to break with the embeddedness and secrecy of a network, one method is to make a list of members, thereby making a network visible” (p. 98). In other words, to effectively counter al-Qa’ida, opponents might “demand that it introduce some elements of organization—at least membership” (p. 98). Because membership in al-Qa’ida or other terrorist organizations is seldom

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avowed, U.S. intelligence agencies have developed the practice of “identity intelligence” to identify members of a group or organization by fusing biologi- cal, biographical, behavioral, and reputational information related to individu- als (U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2014a). Through connecting individuals to “other persons, places, events, or materials, [and] analyzing patterns of life,” U.S. authorities claim that they are able to characterize an individual’s level of potential threat to U.S. interests (p. 73).

Although it is useful for establishing the partialness of an organization, Ahrne and Brunsson’s model does not help stakeholders understand how to undermine or obstruct organizational membership, hierarchy, rules, monitor- ing, and sanctions. To do that, stakeholders need guidance on what specific kinds of communication can be influenced. We therefore turn to CCO.

CCO and the Four Flows Model

This study draws upon McPhee’s four flows model (for a discussion of the commonalities and differences among the three major “schools” of CCO theorizing, see Schoeneborn et al., 2014). The Montreal and Luhmannian schools of CCO have been used to study terrorist organizations (Schoeneborn & Scherer, 2010, 2012; Stohl & Stohl, 2011), but the contributions of the four flows model have heretofore not been explored. The model maintains that organizations are constituted within and through four types of distinct yet interdependent message flows or interaction processes related to four audi- ences. Specifically, organizations must maintain relations with (a) their mem- bers through membership negotiation, (b) themselves through self-structuring, (c) their internal subgroups through activity coordination, and (d) outside stakeholders through institutional positioning. For example, in negotiating members and nonmembers, an organization is simultaneously framed as hav- ing prior existence. Organizations engage in self-structuring when members communicate about and perform internal relations and organizing processes. Organizations engage in activity coordination as internal subgroups decide on how to perform various tasks. Finally, organizations communicate with outside entities, such as funders, suppliers, collaborators, and the media (McPhee & Zaug, 2000).

Criticisms of the four flows model center on its imprecision concerning when, exactly, an organization has been constituted in communication (Brummans, Cooren, Robichaud, & Taylor, 2013). Koschmann (2012) has noted that empirical investigations using the four flows model are rare. We nevertheless argue that the model is useful for studying organizational decline and dissolution because it identifies communicative phenomena that are cen- tral to organizational existence. In a comparative analysis of CCO theories,

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McPhee stated that “structuration rests on the activity of organizational mem- bers,” a claim that appears to privilege membership negotiation as the critical flow (Schoeneborn et al., 2014, p. 297). McPhee and Zaug (2000) and McPhee and Iverson (2009) have emphasized, however, that organizational constitu- tion requires all four flows to be interrelated and mutually influential. We demonstrate in this study that al-Qa’ida has constituted itself using all four flows, and simultaneously occluding them all is necessary for organizational dissolution. Yet, each of the four flows may not possess the same influence in its association with decline at a given point in time. In some situations thwart- ing one flow may be quicker or easier than another but that does not necessar- ily make it the most effective means of deconstituting an organization.

Along these lines, Schoeneborn and Scherer (2010) called for a “repara- doxification” of mass media reports about terrorism to create ambiguities that might destabilize terrorist organizations (p. 4). Reparadoxification reintro- duces ambiguity to communicative events. Although the authors did not invoke the four flows model, they encouraged media commentators to under- mine the institutional positioning flow by “referring to single groups or small organizations rather than to label them as all belonging to an overarching orga- nization named al Qaeda” (p. 4). How the concept of reparadoxification might be applied to the other three flows is a question explored in this study. CCO theory is concerned with “how large-scale, purposefully-controlled organiza- tions are constituted” (McPhee & Zaug, 2000, p. 1). We argue that CCO pos- sesses untapped potential for understanding and accelerating the decline and dissolution of terrorist organizations and similar types of hidden collectives. Although conflict or ambiguity might characterize the flows at various times without necessarily obviating organizational existence (McPhee & Iverson, 2009), organizational decline is usefully understood as entailing significant, persistent losses of control over the four flows of communication.

Commentators have long called for al-Qa’ida to be dismantled or destroyed. From a CCO perspective, “organizations cease to exist” only in the absence of communication (Schoeneborn & Scherer, 2012, p. 964). The significance of this study lies in its exploration of whether and how such conditions are possible. Our primary research question is as follows:

Research Question 1: How can the four flows model help stakeholders understand al-Qa’ida’s decline?

Our secondary research question is as follows:

Research Question 2: How can the four flows model help authorities develop communication strategies that accelerate al-Qa’ida’s dissolution?

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Answers to these two questions contribute to our understanding of the decline and dissolution of similar types of hidden organizations.

Method

Our method involves examining a collection of al-Qa’ida’s constitutive texts: the 17 Abbottabad documents. The documents are significant in that they provide a rare glimpse of communication among members of a hidden orga- nization. Stohl and Stohl (2011) claimed that there was no consensual co- orientation system within al-Qa’ida, “The conditions of secrecy insure that the constitutive texts, conversation, and metaconversation cannot be primar- ily rooted in local mutual interaction but in macro historical, institutional and political processes” (p. 1204). However, the Abbottabad documents reveal that al-Qa’ida’s communication was in many ways similar to that of formal, transparent organizations. The documents consist of typed letters totaling 197 pages in English translation (175 in the original Arabic) that were saved on thumb drives, memory cards, or a computer hard drive taken from the Abbottabad compound. The quality of the U.S. Special Operations Command’s original English translation is not consistent throughout the cor- pus. The CTC retranslated small portions of the documents that it deemed inadequate, and we draw upon those retranslations whenever possible.

Bin Laden authored six of the letters, and two (perhaps three) were addressed to him. The known authors or addressees of the other letters include high-ranking al-Qa’ida leaders or affiliates: Atiyah Abd al-Rahman (purport- edly al-Qa’ida’s “operations chief”) who was killed in 2011; Nasir al-Wuhay- shi, the leader of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who was killed in 2015; al-Qa’ida media advisor and spokesman, Adam Gadahn, who was killed in 2015; Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr, leader of the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabab, who was killed in 2014; Ayman al-Zawahiri, formerlyal-Qa’ida’s second in command and its current leader; Abu Yahya al-Libi, a high-ranking al-Qa’ida leader who was killed in 2012; and Hakimullah Mahsud, leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, killed in 2013. A few of the letters do not list their author(s) or addressee.

Although a larger corpus of close to 1,000 captured al-Qa’ida documents is available through the CTC’s Harmony database, we limit our analysis to the Abbottabad documents in this study for three reasons: (a) these docu- ments allegedly were in the possession of Bin Laden and therefore potentially possess a high level of significance; (b) the corpus offers documents of suf- ficient quantity and variety to permit exploration of al-Qa’ida’s organiza- tional communication; and (c) the CTC has already performed its own analysis of the documents in the 2012 report “Letters From Abbottabad: Bin

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Laden Sidelined?” allowing us to compare a CCO perspective with a tradi- tional one. The documents available through the CTC’s Harmony database have been collected nonsystematically and cannot be considered representa- tive of al-Qa’ida’s organizational communication as a whole. The documents may be representative only of the “news” that organizational members and leaders would be comfortable communicating.

Studies of organizational decline usually involve retrospective interpreta- tion, that is, they examine an already defunct organization or one already presumed to be in decline to identify the weak signals of trouble that were previously overlooked (Weick, 2013). We assent to the widespread (but not uncontested) premise that al-Qa’ida is currently in decline (Liepman & Mudd, 2014). The study of communicative flows potentially can include “events of organizational disorder or failure” (Putnam, Nicotera, & McPhee, 2009, p. 12), but identifying such events is methodologically challenging in that “any one message or episode can contribute to multiple flows at once, and processes identified as part of one flow can overlap with interactions in other flows” (p. 10). Following case studies that have used the four flows model to interpret organizational documents (Browning, Greene, Sitkin, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2009; Lutgen-Sandvik & McDermott, 2008), we iden- tified passages within the Abbottabad documents that made reference to or performed flows associated with member negotiation (e.g., recruitment, inclusion, commitment, and identification), self-structuring (e.g., communi- cation steering the organization in a particular direction, or policies attempt- ing to change or stabilize organizational structure), activity coordination (e.g., planning and operations), and institutional positioning (interactions with other entities, e.g., partners, affiliates, supporters, or media; Putnam, Nicotera, & McPhee, 2009). Similar to Browning et al. (2009), we selected key examples of these passages to illustrate our contention that degradations in control over the four flows described in the documents have reflected and reinforced al-Qa’ida’s decline.

CCO and al-Qa’ida’s Decline

Organizational decline can be understood as a condition in which contextual- ized actors’ production of texts and mediated use of symbols persistently fail to coordinate and control their own and others’ activity and knowledge (Kuhn, 2008). McPhee (2004) stated, “An enduring inscribed record of orga- nizational arrangements is a necessary medium for stability of membership, relationships, and roles” (p. 365). Therefore, when inscribed records of orga- nizational arrangements—texts—repeatedly fail to coordinate and control people’s activity and knowledge, then organizational instability and decline

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may result. We see in the Abbottabad documents Bin Laden and other al- Qa’ida leaders’ struggle to adequately coordinate and control the activity and knowledge of organizational members, affiliates, spokespersons, and com- mentators. The documents show how Bin Laden and other al-Qa’ida leaders attempted to produce texts (letters, directives, policies, memoranda, etc.) to better control the four flows of constitutive communication in order to stabi- lize organizational membership, relationships, and roles.

Complicating Membership Negotiation

Membership negotiation is the communication flow that establishes, main- tains, or transforms the relationship between the organization and its mem- bers. McPhee and Zaug (2000) noted that this flow is constitutive because one must be a member of something. Stohl and Stohl (2011) argued that al- Qa’ida’s recruitment centered upon new members’ silent evocation of past texts and their willingness to risk themselves to demonstrate their commit- ment. Similarly, Schoeneborn and Scherer (2010) argued that terrorist orga- nizations were “able to draw on a latent pool of potential organizational members which do not become actual organizational members until they commit to a communicative act of terrorism” (p. 2). However, the Abbottabad documents indicate that al-Qa’ida’s leadership was actively concerned with membership and struggled to control it.

Leaders could not agree on which individuals and organizations should be granted formal membership status. One leader (likely Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to the CTC) wrote to Bin Laden,

The problem is that al-Qa’ida has become a broad field; each can enter . . . to declare his allegiance, does not wait to see whether he was accepted or not, even though the pledge is a contract between contractors (SOCOM-2012- 0000006, p. 2; all “SOCOM” references denote Special Operations Command documents found as appendices in Lahoud et al., 2012).

The letter writer elaborated,

Anyways, the important thing, honorable sir, is that the issue [of membership] needs to be controlled, to know who is member of al-Qa’ida, what his function is, what side he follows, what is the way to impeach him . . . (SOCOM-2012- 0000006, p. 2)

Bin Laden was vested with the power to attribute or withhold formal membership, but the letter writer sought a more objective system: “Therefore,

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starting from now please think about controlling the matter with a system that deals with people, each according to his religion, piety and contribution” (p. 3). Other al-Qa’ida leaders also displayed concern for stabilizing mem- bership. In one letter, Mahmud al-Hasan and Abu Yahya al-Libi rebuked Hakimullah Mahsud, the leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, for attempting to poach members, “Badr Mansur and other members of our group [al- Qa’ida] are not to be approached to join another organization or to deploy to other locations” (p. 2). In another letter, drafted in 2007, a writer describes to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman the member negotiation practices of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI; formerly al-Qa’ida in Iraq). Having located a supply of potential members within the ranks of Iraq’s religious students, ISI leaders were warned “to be very wary of newly-joined members” (SOCOM-2012- 0000014-HT, pp. 8-9). The writer elaborated,

No matter their status or capabilities, they must not be placed in leadership positions in the shura council, as there are many dangers lurking. Victory lies ahead, so one must remain on the lookout for penetrations and be extremely wary of newcomers. (p. 9)

Whether and how al-Qa’ida or its affiliates monitored new or potential members for infiltrators is unclear from the documents. Spies aside, non- members have helped to erode al-Qa’ida’s control over membership negotia- tion by imputing al-Qa’ida membership or affiliation to a range of individuals and groups (Stohl & Stohl, 2011). While membership and affiliation are, con- ceptually speaking, different phenomena, they are similar in their constitutive force in evoking organizational existence. CCO’s emphasis on the multisite character of organizational constitution underscores that even if the leaders of al-Qa’ida suppress formal membership, the act of outsiders imputing mem- bership and affiliation to other groups can extend al-Qa’ida to other sites. When individuals and groups declare or are imputed affiliation with al- Qa’ida, that speech act simultaneously affirms the continued existence of al- Qa’ida. Authorities should not inadvertently entrench organizational existence by perpetuating erroneous images of widespread membership or affiliation. There is no indication in the Abbottabad documents that an inscribed record of organizational arrangements adequately stabilized the organization’s membership negotiation flow.

Impeding Self-Structuring

As communicative constructions, organizations are brought into existence as people make decisions about membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and

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sanctions (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2011). McPhee and Zaug (2000) state that it is through the process of self-structuring that an organization “takes control of and influences itself” in order to address both routine and unanticipated prob- lems (p. 9). By developing this organizational sense of self, a collective can “avoid problems of over-adaptation, incoherence, and confusion” (p. 9). The authors claim that reflexive self-structuring distinguishes organizations from informal groupings. In transparent organizations, written and verbal interac- tions mediated by relatively stable organizational charts, directives, orders, or authoritative decision-making bodies are primary mechanisms of self-struc- turing. References to similar mechanisms of self-structuring are found in the Abbottabad documents, but some of al-Qa’ida’s leaders lamented that they had failed to adequately control this constitutive flow.

Bin Laden generally did not seek to formally unify various jihadi groups under al-Qa’ida’s umbrella. As a result, Saudi militants unilaterally adopted the name “al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula” in 2003, but Abu Mus’ab al- Zarqawi’s “al-Qa’ida in Mesopotamia” (or “al-Qa’ida in Iraq”) was the only affiliate that Bin Laden publicly acknowledged as formally united with al- Qa’ida (this group later broke with al-Qa’ida to form “ISIS” or the so-called “Islamic State”). Bin Laden’s reluctance to inscribe a formal record of orga- nizational arrangements is understandable because self-structuring relies upon an illocutionary act of declaration. The flow is a double-edged sword for hidden organizations. On one hand, a declaration, “We are al-Qa’ida,” performs a constitutive function. Indeed, one al-Qa’ida leader (probably al- Zawahiri, according to the CTC) encouraged accession of affiliates into al- Qa’ida despite Bin Laden’s misgivings, “I see it to be very essential for al-Qa’ida to confirm and declare its linkage with its branches, in order to become a reported fact, there is no use in denying it” (SOCOM-2012- 0000006, p. 1). On the other hand, any public declaration is potentially sui- cidal. Bin Laden understood this situation, and in a letter to al-Shabab’s leader, Mukhtar Abu al-Zubayr, who sought formal union with al-Qa’ida, Bin Laden stated, “It would be better for them [Somali jihadists] to say that there is a relationship with al-Qa’ida which is simply a brotherly Islamic connec- tion and nothing more, which would neither deny nor prove” (SOCOM- 2012-0000005, p. 2).

al-Qa’ida’s ambiguous self-structuring can also be seen in al-Qa’ida spokesman Adam Gadahn’s reference to an internal debate about whether or not al-Qa’ida should establish an Islamic state, “I would like to emphasize that I was at ease with declaring the State for a long time . . . ” (SOCOM- 2012-0000004-HT, p. 6). Gadahn indicated that other leaders, however, pre- ferred a different arrangement, “My stand is not a new one, but I followed the official stand of the organization, being afraid not to create a seduction . . .”

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(p. 6). Gadahn also advised Bin Laden that al-Qa’ida should take public mea- sures to dissociate itself from “criminal” jihadi groups that routinely slaugh- tered Muslims (p. 23). While some of the affiliates sought to acquire the al-Qa’ida brand, operationally, the affiliates did not regularly consult with al-Qa’ida’s leaders nor follow their directives regarding the killing of inno- cents. This situation complicated self-structuring. Gadahn claimed that al- Qa’ida in Iraq’s “improvised decision has caused a split in the Mujahidin ranks and their supporters inside and outside Iraq” (p. 11). Other letter writ- ers, including Bin Laden, express similar sentiments regarding the activities of affiliates.

Given this situation, the CTC argues that “the framing of an ‘AQC’ [al- Qa’ida Central] as an organization in control of regional ‘affiliates’ reflects a conceptual construction by outsiders rather than the messy reality of insid- ers” (Lahoud et al., 2012, p. 12). Illustrating how outsiders can influence self-structuring, Bin Laden appropriated the expression al-Qa’ida Central (“AQC”) from the media, “This term [AQC] was coined in the media to dis- tinguish between al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan and al-Qa’ida in the other territories. In my opinion, there is no problem with using this term in principle in order to clarify the intended meaning” (SOCOM-2012- 0000019-HT, 2012, p. 13). In an effort to control self-structuring processes, Bin Laden asked al-Zawahiri to prepare a memorandum of understanding that would require regional jihadi groups to consult with “AQC” before act- ing. The symbiotic nature of self-structuring thus rendered outside descrip- tions of al-Qa’ida’s organizational structure as influential as members’ independent constructions. McPhee and Iverson (2009) anticipated this situ- ation, claiming that organizational members initiate, but do not wholly con- trol, the process of self-structuring. In the context of terrorism, law enforcement organizations, intelligence services, defense institutions, media organizations, and a myriad of other stakeholders can impute structure to otherwise ambiguous self-structuring phenomena associated with hidden organizations.

al-Qa’ida’s self-structuring created asymmetrical power relations. Through self-structuring, some organizational members became responsible for scrutinizing the actions of other members to ensure the latter’s commit- ment to organizational rules. McPhee and Iverson (2009) pointed out that such surveillance activities are also a form of constitutive self-structuring. The Abbottabad documents show that Bin Laden was concerned about the loss of control over al-Qa’ida’s structure, and he spent much time in his let- ters fretting over possible leaders within al-Qa’ida and the affiliates, as well as asking for reports from the field about activities and individuals, instruct- ing subordinates to try to influence organizational processes.

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Obstructing Activity Coordination

Activity coordination coincides with self-structuring and can include the processes of task representation, focusing group attention, and negotiating the division of labor. McPhee and Zaug (2000) stated that activity coordina- tion is the process of adjusting work processes and solving immediate prac- tical problems. CCO views activity coordination as derivative of self-structuring, yet reinforcing of self-structuring via routine and repeti- tion. Activity coordination’s main constitutive contribution is to allow prac- tices to simultaneously endure and adapt to contingencies. In the Abbottabad documents, activity coordination revolved primarily around the planning and execution of terrorist attacks and the generating of publicity in support of al-Qa’ida’s stated goals, namely, the driving of Western influence from Muslim nations, the eventual creation of an Islamic state, and the strict imposition of Sharia law.

al-Qa’ida’s leaders struggled to control the activity coordination flow. Leaders’ isolation and the infrequency of communication hindered opera- tions. In one letter, Bin Laden stated,

Also, I hope that he [Anwar al-Awlaqi] be informed of us still needing more information from the battlefield in Yemen, so that it is feasible for us, with the help of God, to make the most appropriate decision to either escalate or calm down. (SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT, p. 2)

In another letter, Bin Laden urged Atiyah Abd al-Rahman:

Pay attention to explaining the importance of coordination, as well as the dangers of neglecting it, to all the brothers in all the regions. In general, it would be good to clarify the wisdom or the reason behind this in most of what we ask the brothers for, unless it exposes operational secrets. (SOCOM-2012- 0000019-HT, p. 26)

In late 2010, Bin Laden believed that the organization’s decline could best be forestalled by having affiliates pledge commitment to policies and strategies outlined in a memorandum. Bin Laden wrote:

Once the memorandum is prepared, we shall discuss it and send it to all the regions, along with sending the general policy in the military work. We shall then inform you of he committee that we are in the process of forming … that committee will have the privilege of reviewing and postponing any publications assessed to be outside the general policy…. (SOCOM-2012-0000019-HT, 2012, p. 7)

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Importantly, organizational leaders from outside the local context usually impose the shape of activity coordination. The Abbottabad documents illus- trate that Bin Laden and other leaders repeatedly urged affiliates to abort domestic attacks and instead focus on the United States. One unknown writer implored Bin Laden, “Issue a clear and unequivocal statement to anyone who listens to you and accepts your opinion to direct the work and focus it on the head of the snake [the United States]” (SOCOM-2012-0000018-HT, p. 11). Gadahn even went as far as to draft text that could be disseminated to Islamic scholars, urging them to condemn domestic attacks to influence the activities of regional jihadists. Gadahn wrote,

What we need is direct speeches, defined and specialized on that subject [the objectionableness of domestic attacks]. This is the suggested text: Acquittal and Warning[:] In the name of God the merciful the compassionate God almighty has stated: “And fight those who are fighting you and do not be aggressive as God does not like the aggressors.” Qa’ida al-Jihad Organization has denounced, more than once, and on the tongue of its Emirs and scholars and symbols and those who speak in favor, any armed operation that targets the Muslims in the places of their gathering, and any operation that does not account for the sanctity of their blood, souls, bodies, belongings or money . . . (SOCOM-2012-0000004-HT, p. 22).

Gadahn’s statement, with its “suggested text,” illustrates how textual con- trol was a central issue for al-Qa’ida. Although texts (letters) attempted to control activity coordination, counterterrorism authorities have instead focused on the disruption of plots through surveillance and killing the pur- ported leaders of al-Qa’ida through “decapitation” strikes. al-Qa’ida’s lead- ers obviously recognized the danger and therefore attempted to control the movement of personnel. Bin Laden wrote in one letter,

Regarding the brothers in Waziristan in general . . . I am leaning toward getting most of the brothers out of the area . . . The brothers who can keep a low profile and take the necessary precautions should stay, but move to new houses on a cloudy day [due to the possibility of lethal drone strikes]. (SOCOM-2012- 0000015-HT, 2012, p. 1)

Bin Laden warned, “Remind your deputies that all communication with oth- ers should be done through letters” (p. 2). From attempting to coordinate and control activities ranging from financial matters, to media relations, to move- ments of personnel, Bin Laden sought a span of control that was remarkable for any organization with complicated managerial, financial, and interna- tional activities. However, because activity coordination can never be

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completely managed from afar, it is open to manipulation—the implications of which we explore later in this study.

Undermining Institutional Positioning

McPhee and Zaug (2000) explain that institutional positioning involves com- munication outside the organization. Key to institutional positioning is what the authors refer to as face presentation, giving external parties a sense of the nature of the organization, what it is trying to accomplish, and its character. Organizational leaders try to coordinate and control the self-representations of the organization because they are vital for helping to secure resources and legitimacy. The Abbottabad documents show that al-Qa’ida’s leaders were frustrated by their inability to control the institutional positioning flow, espe- cially among international audiences. In one letter, Gadahn expressed his dis- may, “To rely only on Al Jazeera and the Jihadi forums on the internet is not useful [for communicating with international audiences]” (SOCOM-2012- 0000004-HT, p. 5). Gadahn thus proposed an experiment. He wrote that in the lead up to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, al-Qa’ida should send publicity materials to a group of 30 writers and independent journalists “who have shown interest in al-Qa’ida issues, from different [Western] countries” (p. 4). Gadahn elaborated,

Suppose that one-third of those corresponded with are interested, then we would have 10 international journalists that will display our mission in the newspapers and channels. If the experiment works, then I suggest to repeat it on every important occasion, and any instant we want to increase the number of those informed about some message or statement. (p. 4)

Most of the institutional positioning discourse in the Abbottabad docu- ments concerns al-Qa’ida’s inability to coordinate and control interactions with international media. For example, in one letter, Bin Laden declared to a colleague:

I hope that brother Basir be informed that the media appearance is his task [not subordinates’], and in general, they should reduce the appearance during this period unless necessary, and if necessity calls for one of the brothers to issue a speech, thus Basir should review it before it’s broadcasted in the media. (SOCOM-2012-0000003-HT, pp. 2-3)

Bin Laden sought better management of media activities. In another letter, he stated,

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It seems that there is a misunderstanding regarding the issue of Jihadi media. It is a main piece of the war and I did not mean that it should be abandoned. I just wanted to point out that the level of interviews did not reach the desired level and I called on you to do better. (SOCOM-2012-0000015-HT, p. 3)

The Abbottabad documents are striking in that al-Qa’ida’s concern for con- trol over institutional positioning would be familiar to any student of public relations. Gadahn even evaluated major media outlets in terms of al-Qa’ida’s ability to control its message. For example, he wrote,

As for the neutrality of CNN in English, it seems to be in cooperation with the government more than the others (except Fox News of course). Its Arabic version brings good and detailed reports about al-Sahab releases, with a lot of quotations from the original text. That means they copy directly from the releases or its gist. (SOCOM-2012-0000004-HT, p. 3)

Nevertheless, Gadahn noted the inability of al-Qa’ida to adequately control positioning among U.S. audiences:

In conclusion, we can say that there is no single [television] channel that we could rely on for our messages … and even the channel that broadcast them, probably it would distort them somehow. This is accomplished by bringing analysts and experts that would interpret its meaning in the way they want it to be. Or they may ignore the message and conduct a smearing of the individuals, to the end of the list of what you know about their cunning methods. (SOCOM- 2012-0000004-HT, pp. 3-4)

As McPhee and Zaug (2000) note, any relationship requires a flow of communication—even a relationship based on enmity. To the extent that authorities elide recognition of al-Qa’ida as an organization, it undermines the constitutive flow of institutional positioning. Of course, al-Qa’ida could potentially sustain its institutional positioning flow via other interlocutors, but authorities should not inadvertently facilitate this constitutive relationship.

In sum, the Abbottabad documents provide a unique view of al-Qa’ida’s decline. The Director of the CIA, John Brennan, has stated, “We’re on a path to al Qaeda’s destruction, and the president has committed that we’re not going to rest until al Qaeda is destroyed as an organization . . .” (CNN Wire Staff, 2012, para. 2). A CCO perspective maintains that organizational destruction occurs when the communication that constitutes organizing ceases (Schoeneborn & Scherer, 2012). Our analysis of al-Qa’ida’s four flows underscores, however, that communicative processes of organizational

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decline and dissolution are neither simple nor straightforward because both organizational members and nonmembers generate, control, or thwart consti- tutive communication in complex ways. We next discuss the implications of this condition.

Implications

The Abbottabad documents reveal how al-Qa’ida’s leaders attempted to use texts to coordinate and control the communicative flows of membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional position- ing. Al-Qa’ida’s inability to effectively control these flows both reflected and contributed to the organization’s decline. However, the possibilities for com- pletely de-constituting al-Qa’ida remain slim given that unclear, conflict- laden, or contradictory flows, as well as the communication of non-members, can perform constitutive functions (McPhee & Iverson, 2009; Schoeneborn & Scherer, 2010). The Abbottabad documents also illustrate that organiza- tional decline is a phenomenon that can be exacerbated and/or resisted by both organizational members and nonmembers alike. Our analysis should therefore help shield CCO against criticisms that it is blind to how “local construction is necessarily dependent on nonlocal relationships, resources, and practices” (Reed, 2009, p. 154).

Similar to previous applications of Montreal School and Luhmannian perspectives to the case of al-Qa’ida, our analysis may not fully realize CCO’s potential in shattering the container metaphor that continues to but- tress organizational theorizing. Among CCO’s three schools, the four flows model tends to portray organizations as containers for communication. The model usually depicts self-structuring and activity coordination as occurring inside organizational boundaries, with member negotiation and institutional positioning occurring in relation to outside entities. However, the Abbottabad documents indicate that the image of certain flows circulating primarily internally or externally should be reconsidered. The flows meander over each other’s territory and, in the process, dissolve illusory and arbitrary internal and external boundaries. Despite CCO’s radical potential for rethinking organizations in this way, persuading counterterrorism authori- ties to reject the container metaphor remains only on the horizon of possibil- ity. Yet, one implication of our analysis is that it may be possible to shift the emphasis from “destroying” the containers of terrorist organizations to dam- ming, diverting, diluting, flooding, or rechanneling the communicative flows that constitute them.

Specifically, Mellahi and Wilkinson (2004) found that research concern- ing organizational decline and dissolution has lacked an integrative

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framework. The authors proposed an approach that focused on the interplay between contextual forces and organizational dynamics. Our analysis illus- trates how communication can be seen as the conceptual bridge between those two phenomena. From a CCO perspective, it is unsurprising that in the midst of numerous assassinations of al-Qa’ida members in 2010 (including Shaikh Sa’id al-Masri, purportedly the organization’s third most important figure) some of al-Qa’ida’s leaders, including Bin Laden, believed that the organization’s decline could best be averted by having affiliates pledge com- mitment to policies and strategies outlined in a memorandum. Although Bin Laden’s confidence in the ability of a single memorandum to adequately coordinate and control the tactical activities and institutional positioning of the organization may seem naïve, it nonetheless demonstrates that within al- Qa’ida, texts have been a fundamental link between contextual forces and organizational dynamics.CCO helps explain, at a granular level, how failures to coordinate and control internal and external stakeholders are bound up with the specific texts and flows that constitute organization. In contrast to scholarship that emphasizes the enigmatic qualities of hidden organizations, the Abbottabad documents reveal that al-Qa’ida has attempted to constitute itself through stunningly mundane forms of organizational communication, for example, letters, statements, memoranda, orders, directives, reports, and media releases. The Abbottabad documents are thus striking in their revela- tion of the mimetic character of al-Qa’ida, that is, its imitative qualities (Der Derian, 2005). Like a corporation, al-Qa’ida’s leadership attempted to main- tain coordination and control through centralized practices, but as the organi- zation expanded, operational leaders from affiliated organizations began to exert their own authority. The rise of the affiliates caused significant chal- lenges related to the control of membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions. These challenges provide opportunities for reconsidering counter- terrorism strategy and informing the study of hidden organizations more broadly.

Implications for Counterterrorism Strategy

Our analysis indicates that undermining a terrorist organization’s control of the flows of membership negotiation, self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning might be accomplished through what the Schoeneborn and Scherer call reparadoxification, that is, reintroducing ambi- guity to communicative events. The Abbottabad documents confirm that cre- ating ambiguity around al-Qa’ida’s mass media messages has been an effective strategy for degrading the organization’s institutional positioning flow, and it is a strategy that should continue. Extending Schoeneborn and

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Scherer’s concept of reparadoxification beyond mass media and institutional positioning, however, there are several types of communication that might encourage the destabilization of the other three flows of membership negotia- tion, self-structuring, and activity coordination. Because the Abbottabad documents show that vague and contradictory communication both reflected and exacerbated al-Qa’ida’s decline, we advance obstruction, deception, fal- sification, and fabrication as communicative interventions that might inten- sify and accelerate decline to the point of organizational dissolution. Authorities could use these interventions against other terrorist organizations that resemble al-Qa’ida in terms of their communicative flows—especially those that seek centralized command and control. While these kinds of inter- ventions could be anticipated from CCO theory alone, our analysis reveals the crucial role that certain types of texts have played in al-Qa’ida’s constitu- tion, thus offering specific guidance for counterterrorism authorities.

Thwarting al-Qa’ida’s membership negotiation flow could take multiple forms because, as the Abbottabad documents indicate, organizational bound- aries, members, and recruiting processes are often unclear. Stohl and Stohl (2011) stated, “clandestinity creates a situation where many people can posi- tion themselves as speaking for this organization . . .” (p. 1207). Given this dynamic, to further undermine coordination and control, authorities could masquerade as al-Qa’ida leaders, members, or neutral commentators and saturate communication channels, especially online media and jihadi mes- sage boards, with “false” messages regarding the membership status of vari- ous figures or groups. For example, Gadahn noted that jihadi message boards created problems by “distort[ing] the face of al-Qa’ida, due to what you know of bigotry, the sharp tone that characterizes most of the participants in these forums” (SOCOM-2012-0000004-HT, p. 5). Authorities could use message boards to further distort and undermine al-Qa’ida’s image and allure, as well as generate online articles and statements to complicate the recruitment of new members by providing misleading information about membership prac- tices and procedures. Identifying certain behaviors or utterances as denoting membership could generate confusion among potential recruits, forcing orga- nizational members to expend resources clarifying genuine recruitment pro- cesses or correcting false information about boundaries. False declarations of membership revocation could also generate disorder.

However, McPhee and Iverson (2009) described new member negotiation as a process of crossing organizational boundaries, and communication that invokes these boundaries simultaneously constitutes the organization. As illustrated in our analysis, speaking in the organization’s name still estab- lishes the organization as an absent third party. It therefore may be productive to disseminate narratives that obfuscate or deny organizational boundaries

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and identities. For example, in 2011, authorities and commentators could have referenced the Abbottabad documents to assert that formal membership in al-Qa’ida required the approval of its founder, Bin Laden. With the lead- er’s death, formal membership was no longer technically possible. Under Islamic law, renewed pledges of bayat or fealty to a new leader are required, so that leader could not realistically claim organizational continuity.

al-Qa’ida’s self-structuring and activity coordination are also open to mul- tiple interventions that can facilitate decline. The Abbottabad documents demonstrate that contestation over organizational relationships hindered al- Qa’ida’s planning and operations. Authorities could therefore disseminate to would-be or existing members misleading organizational directives, orders, or decisions. Once assented to or legitimated by members, nonmembers, or commentators, misleading directives could complicate organizational lead- ers’ control over self-structuring processes. Although there may be unin- tended consequences associated with such a strategy, authorities could, at a minimum, better account for the constitutive force of their public declara- tions regarding organizational relationships. Declarations that intensify decline by destabilizing control may be more valuable in comparison with those that simply report facts. Interventions targeting activity coordination could be similar to those designed to stymie self-structuring: dissemination of misleading organizational objectives, plans, procedures, directives, orders, or decisions. Flooding known and suspected al-Qa’ida members and affili- ates with falsified messages related to financial requests, personnel matters, and operational planning (all of which are instances of organizational com- munication evident in the Abbottabad documents) could potentially consume the time and resources of al-Qa’ida leadership in clarifying genuine communication.

The clearest illustration of our argument comes from Bin Laden’s own hand. In one letter, Bin Laden tells Atiyah Abd al-Rahman that it is not per- mitted for al-Qa’ida operatives to break the oath of U.S. citizenship (SOCOM-2012-0000015-HT), and in another letter, Bin Laden calls for operatives “to conduct operations inside America as long as they have not given their promises not to harm America” (SOCOM-2012-0000016-HT, p. 2). Bin Laden’s specific guidance shows how texts can promote or impede activity coordination in ways that significantly influence the ability of al- Qa’ida to meet its objectives. In this case, Bin Laden’s instructions, if fol- lowed, constrain who is permitted to carry out terrorism operations within the United States. Bin Laden’s instructions thus indicate that specific texts (letters, statements, directives, etc.) could be fabricated and attributed to a terrorist organization, its affiliates and supporters, leaders, or neutral com- mentators in ways that limit or redirect activities, blur boundaries, contradict

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public pronouncements, sow confusion, and thwart control. These fabricated texts could hinder membership negotiation (through false recruitment prac- tices), self-structuring (through the dissemination of misleading organiza- tional arrangements), activity coordination (through distorted directives), and institutional positioning (through fictitious public declarations). The point is to imitate organizational communication flows in ways that lead to different forms of knowledge and action that radically undermine coordina- tion and control, thereby contributing to organizational decline and eventual dissolution. However, using CCO flows to dissolve terrorist organizations still requires knowledge of how organizational decisions are made and how those decisions are communicated—no easy task. While forms of repara- doxification might be useful across multiple flows, the practical challenges associated with intercepting and thwarting a given flow may make some interventions more viable than others at any given time.

The U.S. government relies on its own hidden organizations (e.g., clandes- tine agencies and counterterrorism units) to defeat terrorist organizations. The U.S. military’s principal counterterrorism policy document, “Joint Publication 3-26, Counterterrorism” (U.S. Chiefs of Staff, 2014b), makes two unelaborated references to the use of military deception, but references to the other strategies described herein (or similar strategies) are only vaguely alluded to or absent. Although the document does not explicitly address con- stitutive phenomena in the ways we have described, it is unclear how and/or to what extent covert counterterrorism campaigns directed at al-Qa’ida already target the four flows in the ways that we have suggested. However, it is unlikely that constitutive processes are an explicit focus of authorities’ attention due to the U.S. government’s overwhelming reliance on the mes- sage influence model of communication, which generally takes organiza- tional existence and boundaries for granted (Corman, Trethewey, & Goodall, 2008). We have argued that a CCO-informed strategy would instead leverage the metaphor of fluidity inherent in the idea of “flows” to engage in forms of mimesis that promote organizational decline and dissolution. In other words, our analysis demonstrates how CCO provides a framework for developing specific communicative interventions that use imitation and subterfuge to complicate organizing processes.

Implications for the Study of Hidden Organizations

CCO also holds implications for the study of hidden organizations in general. The four flows model helps to account for why and how instances of rela- tively visible communication occur within otherwise “dark” or “shadowed” organizations. In Scott’s (2013) typology, al-Qa’ida and similar terrorist

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organizations are positioned as “mostly shadowed” in that their visibility is described as relatively anonymous, their members relatively silent, and their audience relatively mass/public. Scott argued that organizational visibility was the most critical dimension in establishing the hiddenness of an organi- zation. However, the Abbottabad documents indicate that al-Qa’ida sought to display many visibility elements that, theoretically speaking, it should have kept anonymous as a “mostly shadowed” organization. These visibility ele- ments included the use of media spokespersons, a demonstrated concern for organizational image, a seeking of name recognition, and the distribution of press releases and talking points, among others. al-Qa’ida’s categorization as a mostly shadowed entity could therefore be reconsidered based on our anal- ysis. However, because Scott’s model allowed for substantial variation within categories, we propose that a more precise examination of the communica- tive flows of an organization can help to explain why a particular mix of anonymous and recognizable activities is in evidence at any given time, thereby enabling more specific comparisons of hidden organizations. In al- Qa’ida’s case, focusing on its institutional positioning helps to explain why it promoted certain visibility activities. Similar visibility activities should be in evidence in dark or shadowed organizations that have comparable institu- tional positioning objectives (e.g., Anonymous) but less likely to occur in dark or shadowed organizations whose institutional positioning goals are more modest (e.g., the Continuity Irish Republican Army, New York City men’s bathhouses, or U.S. Special Operations units). A focus on communica- tive flows may help analysts understand why and how dark and shadowed organizations attempt to enact various configurations of organizational visibility.

A lack of control over the four flows certainly could affect transparent organization as well; however, the strategies of reparadoxification that we suggest might accelerate al-Qa’ida’s dissolution would not be well suited to organizations that do not share similar characteristics in terms of the com- municative flows related to their visibility, member identification, and audi- ence. Nevertheless, to the extent that one or more of the communicative flows that help to constitute various “shadowed” and “shaded” organizations share similarities with their “dark” cousins, those flows would be candidates for the types of interventions that we have described. Transparent organizations are not as easily susceptible to obstruction, deception, falsification, and fabrica- tion because those organizations usually have recourse to multiple communi- cation channels and legal protections. Lawful, transparent organizations are by no means completely immune to such interventions, however, as recent high-profile cases of phishing scams that involve deception indicate (e.g., hacks of Apple and Twitter). Opportunities for de-constituting organizations

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are therefore facilitated or constrained by the relative hiddenness of their communicative flows.

Future Directions

The Abbottabad documents revealed a puzzling irony: Terrorist organizations are often portrayed as exemplars of the trend of organizations moving “away from fixed hierarchies and toward decentralized networks, away from con- trolling leaders and toward multiple, loosely linked, dispersed agents and cells” (Stohl & Stohl, 2011, p. 1198). However, the Abbottabad documents clearly show that Bin Laden and other al-Qa’ida leaders sought to move in the opposite direction: more centralization, increased hierarchical ordering, and tighter coordination. That impulse appears to have significantly contrib- uted to al-Qa’ida’s decline because it required a level of control over the four flows that was impossible given the circumstances. That impulse also seems counter to al-Qa’ida’s other strategies to remain hidden, such as communicat- ing by courier and eliding questions of membership (Scott, 2013). A logical next step would be to further evaluate these dynamics in light of the larger corpus of al-Qa’ida leadership discourse available through the CTC’s Harmony database. Additionally, it could be hypothesized that the same deg- radations of the four flows that have contributed to al-Qa’ida’s decline would have comparable effects within similar hidden organizations. It may be the case that hidden organizations of a certain type both manifest decline and attempt to counteract decline in unique ways. A comparative study of the communicative dimensions of decline among hidden organizations (espe- cially terrorist organizations) would also be a logical next step in this research project.

Our exploration of CCO raises complex questions about the appropriate uses of theory, the role of academics in supporting or impeding state policy, rights to organizational existence, and the use of deceptive forms of commu- nication to defend cherished values (e.g., life and liberty) that may conflict with other cherished values (e.g., honesty). The exploration of such tensions should be at the forefront of future investigations of hidden organizations. Because some of the interventions that we have described could potentially be used to undermine socially beneficial hidden organizations, some scholars may question the appropriateness of the instrumental use of CCO explored herein. However, our approach is warranted by Corman et al.’s (2008) obser- vation of “the vast gap between academic critiques of the global war on terror and the practical considerations concerning communication practices of those charged with waging it” (p. viii). At a minimum, more attention to the shape and influence of the four flows of communication would help

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authorities, citizens, and scholars enhance their understanding of the consti- tution, maintenance, and deconstitution of hidden organizations.

Conclusion

Like all organizations, hidden organizations are dependent upon flows of communication for their existence. While U.S. counterterrorism strategy has focused on the killing or incarceration of those who have declared themselves to be (or are presumed to be) al-Qa’ida members or affiliates, a CCO perspec- tive, combined with our analysis of (previously) hidden organizational texts, underscores Schoeneborn and Scherer’s (2010, 2012) claim that such a strat- egy is insufficient for achieving the objective of organizational dissolution. Nearly all of the Abbottabad letter writers have been killed, yet al-Qa’ida endures. We have indicated how CCO helps to explain the decline of al- Qa’ida and described how some constitutive processes might be mimicked or thwarted in order to further reduce the organization’s ability to adequately coordinate and control its own members and others’ knowledge and activity. Illegal hidden organizations of the dark, shadowed, and shaded variety are particularly susceptible to such interventions because they operate outside of laws and institutions designed to protect organizational communication. In drawing upon CCO theory, this study has indicated how al-Qa’ida’s tenure as the world’s most dangerous hidden organization could come to an end and how other concealed collectives might suffer a similar fate.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Craig R. Scott and the anonymous reviewers, as well as Timothy Kuhn and Matt Koschmann for their guidance in the development of this essay.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publi- cation of this article.

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Author Biographies

Hamilton Bean (Ph.D., University of Colorado at Boulder) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Colorado Denver, USA. His main research interests include security and communication, institutional discourse, and strategic communication.

Ronald J. Buikema (D.M., University of Maryland University College) is a member of the Principal Professional Staff, National Security Analysis Department, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, USA. His main research interests include intelligence operations, crisis management, organizational culture, and orga- nizational change.

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