Problematising Intelligence Studies

Problematising Intelligence Studies
Author: Hager Ben Jaffel
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2022-06-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000591360

This book offers a new research agenda for intelligence studies in contemporary times. In contrast to Intelligence Studies (IS), whose aim has largely been to improve the performance of national security services and assist in policy making, this book takes the investigation of the new professionals and everyday practices of intelligence as the immediate point of departure. Starting from the observation that intelligence today is increasingly about counter-terrorism, crime control, surveillance, and other security-related issues, this book adopts a transdisciplinary approach for studying the shifting logics of intelligence, how it has come to involve an expanding number of empirical sites, such as the police, local community, prison and the Internet, as well as a corresponding multiplicity of new actors in these domains. Shifting the focus away from traditional spies and Anglo-American intelligence services, this book addresses the transformations of contemporary intelligence through empirically detailed and theoretically innovative analyses, making a key contribution to existing scholarship. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, critical security studies, foreign policy, and International Relations.

Intelligence Oversight in Times of Transnational Impunity

Intelligence Oversight in Times of Transnational Impunity
Author: Didier Bigo
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2023-12-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1003821219

This book adopts a critical lens to look at the workings of Western intelligence and intelligence oversight over time and space. Largely confined to the sub-field of intelligence studies, scholarly engagements with intelligence oversight have typically downplayed the violence carried out by secretive agencies. These studies have often served to justify weak oversight structures and promoted only marginal adaptations of policy frameworks in the wake of intelligence scandals. The essays gathered in this volume challenge the prevailing doxa in the academic field, adopting a critical lens to look at the workings of intelligence oversight in Europe and North America. Through chapters spanning across multiple disciplines – political sociology, history, and law – the book aims to recast intelligence oversight as acting in symbiosis with the legitimisation of the state’s secret violence and the enactment of impunity, showing how intelligence actors practically navigate the legal and political constraints created by oversight frameworks and practices, for instance by developing transnational networks of interdependence. The book also explores inventive legal steps and human rights mechanisms aimed at bridging some of the most serious gaps in existing frameworks, drawing inspiration from recent policy developments in the international struggle against torture. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, sociology, security studies, and international relations.

Intelligence Practices in High-Trust Societies

Intelligence Practices in High-Trust Societies
Author: Kira Vrist Rønn
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2024-09-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1040155812

This book examines the dynamics of intelligence practices in the Scandinavian culture of high social cohesion and high trust. Situated within the new body of scholarly literature, the book emphasizes critical empirical investigations of intelligence practices, highlighting the specific cultural settings of such practices. By providing Scandinavian perspectives on intelligence studies, the work distinguishes Scandinavian intelligence studies from the predominant Anglo-American perspectives. Throughout the Western world, the past two decades have generated a rapid expansion of the legal mandate, funding, and capabilities of intelligence agencies which, simultaneously, have been pushed to renegotiate and renew their legitimacy and democratic mandate in response to a recurrent pattern of scandals, leaks, and failures. While these tendencies are also evident in Scandinavia, the book argues that it is important to emphasize the unique context of cohesion and trust in state agencies that differentiates Scandinavian welfare states from the American (and to a lesser extent British) contexts. This book brings together scholars from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to address the continuous renegotiation of the legitimacy of state intelligence as it plays out in a Scandinavian setting. This book will be of interest to students of intelligence studies, Nordic politics, security studies, and International Relations.

Compliance-Industrial Complex

Compliance-Industrial Complex
Author: Tereza Østbø Kuldova
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 174
Release: 2022-10-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031192249

This is the first book to examine the growth and phenomenon of a securitized and criminalized compliance society which relies increasingly on intelligence-led and predictive technologies to control future risks, crimes, and security threats. It articulates the emergence of a ‘compliance-industrial complex’ that synthesizes regulatory capitalism and surveillance capitalism to impose new regimes of power and control, as well as new forms of subjectivity subservient to the ‘operating system’ of a pre-crime society. Looking at compliance beyond frameworks of business management, corporate governance, law, and accounting, it looks as it as a social phenomenon, instrumental in the pluralization and privatization of policing, where the private intelligence, private security, and big tech companies are being concentrated at the very core of compliance, and hence, governance of the social. The critical book draws on transversal, rather than interdisciplinary, approaches and integrates disparate perspectives, inspired by works in critical criminology, critical algorithm studies, critical management studies, as well as social anthropology and philosophy.

Luxury and Corruption

Luxury and Corruption
Author: Tereza Østbø Kuldova
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2024-01-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1529212421

The world has been bombarded in recent years with images of the luxurious lives and wealth of corrupt oligarchs and kleptocrats, amassed at the expense of ordinary people. Such images exploit our feelings of injustice, are taken as indicative of moral decay, and inspire a desire to purge our economies of dirty money, objects, and people. But why do anti-corruption efforts routinely fail? What kind of world are they creating? Looking at luxury art, antiquities, superyachts, and populist politics, this book explores the connection between luxury and corruption, and offers an alternative to the received wisdom of how we tackle corruption.

US Intelligence and Al Qaeda

US Intelligence and Al Qaeda
Author: de Werd Peter de Werd
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-09-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1474478085

This book sets out a new analytic methodology: analysis by contrasting narratives (ACN), which states that defining an enemy and attempting to counter threats can contribute to the manifestation of that threat. Peter de Werd applies ACN to the problem the US faced in understanding and responding to the phenomenon of Al Qaeda in the 1990s. He demonstrates how this approach can fill a gap in intelligence studies by enhancing the understanding of complex intelligence problems and strengthening the practice of intelligence analysis. Adopting a reflexivist theoretical stance, the book underlines the importance of an integrated approach to interpretation and action, and of a continuous dialogue between intelligence and policy.

A Research Agenda for Intelligence Studies and Government

A Research Agenda for Intelligence Studies and Government
Author: Robert Dover
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2022-11-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1800378807

This Research Agenda explores the academic field of intelligence studies and how it is developing into an increasingly international and diverse area of study.