Clandestine Organizations, al Qaeda, and the Paradox of (In)Visibility: A Response to Stohl and Stohl

In a recent article published in this journal, Stohl and Stohl (2011) examine the phenomenon of clandestine organizations from a communication-centered perspective. The authors draw primarily on the work of the ‘Montreal School’ of organizational communication, which stresses the constitutive role o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization studies Vol. 33; no. 7; pp. 963 - 971
Main Authors: Schoeneborn, Dennis, Scherer, Andreas Georg
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2012
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects:
Al Qaeda
Business
Communication
Communication constitutes organizations (CCO)
Communication networks
Constitutions
Governance
Government and politics
Information dissemination
Interpersonal communication
Mass media
Montreal School
Organization theory
Organizational behaviour
Organizational communication
Organizations
Perpetuation
Schools
Social construction
Studies
Terrorism
Terrorist organizations
Terrorists
Visibility
Canada
Montreal Quebec Canada
organizational communication
social constructionism
terrorist organizations
al Qaeda
communication constitutes organizations (CCO)
Montreal School
ISSN:0170-8406, 1741-3044
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In a recent article published in this journal, Stohl and Stohl (2011) examine the phenomenon of clandestine organizations from a communication-centered perspective. The authors draw primarily on the work of the ‘Montreal School’ of organizational communication, which stresses the constitutive role of communication for organizations. In this response, we argue that the Stohls’ paper does not make full use of the paradigmatic turn that the Montreal School offers to organization studies. In our view, the authors overemphasize the role of communication among organizational members in the constitution of organizations. In contrast, we argue that organizations can also be ‘talked into existence’ by the communicative acts of third parties (e.g., the media), a view that is consistent with the Montreal School’s work. Moreover, drawing on the Stohls’ central example of the terrorist organization al Qaeda, we suggest that the attribute ‘clandestine’ does not capture the essence of that organization because it is characterized by extreme invisibility of its governance structures and by extreme visibility of its terrorist activities. We believe it is the reversion of the relation between invisibility and visibility that differentiates al Qaeda from legitimate organizations such as private businesses and ensures its perpetuation against all odds.
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ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840612448031