Broken trust: performances and performativity in transatlantic intelligence cooperation

Can broken trust be repaired? This study examines the sociopolitical processes through which trust becomes ‘repaired’, ‘rebuilt’ or ‘restored’ following incidents and crises in relations between allies. Drawing on several bodies of literature, including International Relations (IR) scholarship on security community and on practices, we develop a framework for analyzing public performances that we argue play a significant role in restoring trust and trustworthiness. We illustrate the argument in two cases of ‘broken trust’: the Snowden disclosures and the Trump shocks. The paper ends with speculative reflections on the future of transatlantic cooperation.