Visibility and politics: an Arendtian reading of the US drone policy

This article analyses the critical connections between drones as lethal technological devices, visibility, and the very possibility of politics. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s core postulates on politics, modern security and society, it problematises the political implications of using drones as a prominent security instrument in contemporary life. This reading is unpacked through the concept of visibility as a critical reference to analyse how security policies are dealt with politically. It suggests that drones have operated as an instrument of double invisibility, both to those living in the contexts where they are employed, and to those under whose name they are being used. The consequences of this invisibility for political life and the practice of security are also discussed in the light of the policy under the Obama administration.