| Summary: | By analyzing a few sequences from The West Wing taking place in the Situation Room, I will analyze the representation of deliberation whenever the executive power is facing serious conflicts endangering interior or exterior security. How are doubts and crises of concience represented? What devices, be they technical, interactional or ritual, are used to overcome them? How ideas circulate within the hierarchy, and how responsibilities are distributed, once decisions have been made – these are the main issues we will focus on. We will lay emphasis on the contrast between the specificity of decisions guided by the experience of the military and the more trivial context in which advisers’ suggestions attempt to guide the President’s reflection. In this tense, sometimes antagonistic context, we will explain the essential role played by the Law and the Constitution.
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