Since 2004, the CIA has been engaged in a covert campaign using remotely-operated drones to conduct targeted killings of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. The rapid escalation of this programme under the Obama administration has attracted the close attention of the media and of academic experts working in the foreign policy, defence and legal fields. However, while such attention has enhanced our understanding of the scale, effectiveness and legality of drone warfare, there has been little attempt to explain the origins of the programme and place it within wider US counterterrorism practice. This dissertation meets that need, making an original contribution to the study of American counterterrorism by tracing the historical origins of the programme back to a small but influential group of policy makers within the Reagan administration. The thesis reveals how a shared hardline vision of how best to deal with terrorists set in motion legal and technological developments which eventually culminated in the CIA’s drone programme three decades later. By identifying the parallels between the drone campaign and the demands of the hardliners within Reagan’s government, the thesis challenges the commonly held notion that the CIA’s entry into drone warfare marks an unprecedented escalation of US counterterrorism practices resulting from a post-9/11 mind-set. Instead it presents evidence that current US counterterrorism practice is the result of a gradual evolution over the past three decades. Rather than placing the focus upon the drones themselves, this historical review reveals that the CIA’s unmanned aircraft are simply the current tool which enables the United States to pursue the counterterrorism goal it has held for decades – the ability to unilaterally neutralize anti-American terrorists in safe havens around the world. The thesis reveals that the drone campaign should not be regarded as a product of post-9/11 policy, nor the result of the seductive nature of remote control warfare. Instead, the use of drones should be seen as the embodiment of America’s long-term counterterrorism goal.

This thesis considers images of the falling body after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, starting with Associated Press photographer Richard Drew’s photograph of a person falling to their death from the north tower of the World Trade Center. From this specific photograph, this thesis follows various intersecting lines in what I am calling a meshwork of falling-body images. Consequently, each chapter encounters a wide range of examples of falling: from literature to films, personal websites to digital content, and immersive technologies to artworks. Rather than connecting these instances like nodes, this thesis is more concerned with exploring lines of relation and the way the image moves along these lines. This thesis will argue that the falling-body image offers an alternative topology of the attacks: as enmeshed in the unfolding lines of life of web users, artists, directors and writers alike. In this way, this thesis outlines the ways we have lived with the image of falling, and the event itself, and how we continue to experience its unfolding consequences.

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier les transformations économiques, sociales, politiques et idéologiques qui caractérisent le développement du néolibéralisme aux États-Unis, depuis l’essor du mouvement conservateur qui porta Ronald Reagan au pouvoir en 1980 jusqu’à la crise financière de 2008. Par néolibéralisme, on entend une idéologie qui postule la supériorité des forces du marché et du secteur privé sur l’intervention de l’État, un ensemble de politiques qui visent à libérer ces forces des entraves étatiques, et un mode de gouvernance qui s’inspire de la gestion des entreprises privées. À la lecture des nombreux ouvrages consacrés au néolibéralisme, on peut constater un morcellement des connaissances sur certains aspects particuliers du sujet, telles que ses dimensions idéologique, politique ou internationale ; il manque des études qui tentent de concevoir le néolibéralisme à la fois dans sa globalité et dans la spécificité de son développement aux États-Unis. Il nous est paru que la méthode dite « progressive-régressive » de Jean-Paul Sartre permettrait de faire la synthèse qui manque à la littérature actuelle. Bien que Sartre ait développé cette méthode dialectique à l’attention des chercheurs en sciences humaines et sociales, ce cadre épistémologique cherche encore ses adeptes. En l’appliquant au néolibéralisme américain, nous espérons donc contribuer non seulement à la connaissance d’un grand sujet d’actualité, mais aussi au développement des méthodes de recherche dans le champ des études civilisationnistes. / This dissertation aims to study the economic, social, political and ideological transformations that have characterized the development of neoliberalism in the United States, from the rise of the conservative movement that brought Ronald Reagan to power in 1980 to the financial crisis of 2008. Neoliberalism can be defined as an ideology that claims the free market and the private sector to be superior to government intervention, as a package of economic policies that aim to liberate market forces from government constraints, and as a mode of governance based on corporate management practices. Although many studies have been published on neoliberalism, each of them tends to focus on a limited dimension of the subject, such as its ideological, political, or international dimension. Given this fragmentation, there is a lack of studies that attempt to understand the specific development of neoliberalism in the United States from a holistic point of view. In order to achieve this goal, Jean-Paul Sartre’s “progressive-regressive” method appears to be an effective approach. While Sartre developed this method as an epistemological tool for the humanities, few researchers have attempted to make use of it. By applying it to the study of American neoliberalism, this dissertation hopes to contribute not only to the knowledge a topical subject, but also to the development of new research methods in the field of civilizational studies.