If it is accepted that intelligence represented the ‘missing dimension’ of historical accounts of international and domestic politics for many years, at least until the end of the Cold War, circumstances since then have changed significantly. During the 1990s a variety of inter-linked factors brought intelligence blinking out of the dark, if only into the twilight, for example, the perception that insecurities took a greater variety of forms such as organised crime and trafficking, the interest in intelligence methods of a wider variety of state and corporate agencies and the rapid growth of technologies facilitating the gathering, processing and storing of information. These factors were all massively reinforced by 9/11, and by further attacks in Bali, Madrid, Istanbul and London. The impression given by these ‘failures’ is that intelligence is unable to ensure public safety just as security problems seem to be escalating.
In some countries, perhaps especially the U.S. and UK, this seems to have given rise to an unbridled security panic, in which intelligence agencies and processes are necessarily implicated, and which has called into question issues of human rights that were previously assumed to be settled. Therefore, the importance of intelligence currently is not just that there is more to study but also that its performance is central to the possibility of maintaining security and safety by democratic means. This demands that social science examines it more systematically than in the past.
In part this is facilitated by the rapid growth of publicly-available intelligence documentation in recent years, for example, the continued use of freedom of information laws and the policy of releasing files to the public archives while, in some former authoritarian states in Europe, the release of files as part of lustration has been a sometimes painful aspect of democratisation. Inquiries into the intelligence ‘failures’ of 9/11 and the Iraq fiasco have published further materials and, most recently, European inquires into ‘extraordinary rendition’ have provided insights into information sharing in the current counter-terrorist climate. But while the increase in the availability of materials for study is very important, it is not enough. We must consider carefully how we use them.
Intelligence and security services thrive across the globe. Their flexible, rapid and clandestine modi operandi are key in national and international efforts to counter terrorism, organised crime, economic threats and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. When compared to the espionage during the Cold War, today’s intelligence agencies operate in a remarkably different context: they cooperate more often and more intensely with foreign services, new intelligence actors have emerged (some under the institutional umbrella of the European Union) and in the form of private intelligence services, and the distinction between ‘security’, ‘foreign’, ‘domestic’ and police intelligence has become increasingly blurred. In addition, most agencies are also subjected to some form of democratic control.
Political scientists are called upon to explain this growing range of activities and network of actors as well as to elaborate on the consequences of modern intelligence governance for democratic societies. Whenever new practices and contexts emerge, we are called upon to revisit, or as the case may be, generate new theories so as to explain political behaviour as accurately as possible. Unfortunately, the significance of intelligence for contemporary security politics and the challenges that some of these trends pose to the fabric of democratic societies are not sufficiently reflected in the literature.
Therefore it is proposed to establish a Standing Group of Intelligence Governance, whose primary aim will be to provide a forum for the promotion of intelligence studies defined as all aspects of intelligence activity, including information gathering, analysis and the role of intelligence in policy and the exercise of power as well as the effectiveness and accountability of intelligence agencies. The agenda for intelligence research is extensive: comparative work, both historically around questions of regime change and spatially between different countries. The ‘intelligence process’ is researched at a number of levels: the role of individuals and groups in analysis and decision making; the work of intelligence agencies and units within the state, corporate and ‘community’ sectors; national intelligence ‘regimes’ and, finally, the rapid growth of global sharing and co-operation arrangements. Consequently, a pluralist array of theories and methodologies is deployed.
The Standing Group will initially be relatively small and would be organised by ourselves as three co-convenors. Initially, it will aim to maintain a web-site and mailing list, to arrange a section of panels at the General Conference in Potsdam and to plan towards holding a workshop at the Joint Sessions in 2010. An archive of papers will be maintained, starting with those submitted to the Pisa 2007 Conference. The Group will investigate the possibility of a newsletter for the communication of events of interest to contributors as well as providing a means of contact between researchers on work in progress. We organised seven panels within an Intelligence Governance section at Pisa in 2007. The panels heard 24 papers and were highly successful, each being attended by between 25-35 people. The topics covered included intelligence theory and methods, the impact of globalisation and intelligence cooperation, ethics and accountability, secrecy and democratisation of intelligence. Contributors included not only established academics, post graduate students, officials involved in intelligence oversight and representatives of state and private intelligence companies.
The main objectives of the SG on Intelligence Governance will be:
• to provide a pan-European forum for scholars, researchers, practitioners and those in the oversight community to discuss their work;
• to provide for links between existing national intelligence study groups;
• to provide support for researchers working in countries where intelligence studies barely exists;
• to encourage comparative and cross-national research;
• to provide a forum for the discussion of common research problems such as governmental secrecy.
Within the ECPR currently there are several SGs whose work would overlap with this proposed Group. Most obviously, the Group on International Relations discusses issues of security, terrorism and democratisation. However, we suggest that the area of intelligence is sufficiently significant and under-researched that it warrants its own Group. There is also overlap with the SG on Organised Crime, for example, on questions of threat perception and the ‘crime-terror’ nexus; indeed one or two of our panels in Pisa were attended by people from this Group. The SG on Political Regimes examines the relations between regimes and the functioning of government which would also be an area of interest within the proposed SG. Intelligence is an incidental rather than central concern to the work of those SG’s, however.
Hans Born, Senior Fellow, Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of Armed Forces
Peter Gill, Research Professor in Intelligence Studies, European Studies Research Centre, University of Salford, UK;
Thorsten Wetzling, Swiss National Fund Research Fellow, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva.
The significance of intelligence for contemporary security politics and the challenges it presents to democracy have grown steadily in recent years. Yet, despite the fascination that intelligence matters doubtlessly evoke, social scientists prefer, by and large, to conduct research on other topics. So far, this has been a rational decision: “Features unique to academia make the benefits of studying intelligence low. At the same time, features unique to intelligence make the costs of studying intelligence exceptionally high” (Zegart). The SGIG encourages researchers interested in all aspects of intelligence activity, including information gathering, analysis and the role of intelligence in policy and the exercise of power as well as the effectiveness and accountability of intelligence agencies to reconsider this calculus.
As concerns the costs of studying intelligence, one can reasonably expect a lower price tag in the future. To a large extent this is facilitated by the rapid growth of publicly-available intelligence documentation in recent years, for example, the use of freedom of information laws, and the policy of releasing files to the public archives. While, in some former authoritarian states in Europe, the release of files as part of lustration has been a sometimes painful aspect of democratisation, inquiries into the intelligence ‘failures’ of 9/11 and the Iraq fiasco have published further materials. Most recently, European inquiries into ‘extraordinary rendition’ have provided further insights into information sharing in the current counter-terrorist climate.
As concerns the benefit of studying intelligence, the SGIG provides a number of incentives. Notably, it
- provides a unique pan-European forum for scholars, researchers, practitioners and those in the oversight community to discuss their work;
- establishes links between existing national intelligence study groups and supports researchers working in countries where intelligence studies barely exists;
- features a question & answer reference tool on strategies and best practices as concerns research on government secrecy
Having received ESRC recognition in 2008, SGIG will launch its website and mailing list shortly. An archive of papers will be maintained, starting with those submitted to the Pisa 2007 Conference. The Group will regularly distribute a newsletter for the communication of events of interest to contributors as well as providing a means of contact between researchers on work in progress. More concretely, it hosts a section of seven panels at the ECPR’s General Conference in Potsdam (September 2009) and plans to organise a workshop at the ECPR Joint Sessions in 2010.
Hans Born, Peter Gill, Thorsten Wetzling – co-convenors
November 2008
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