Principles to Assess Accountability: A Study of Intelligence Agencies in Spain and Brazil

摘要

Over the last few decades, intelligence studies moved from a unique theory based on secrecy to multiple epistemologies to address different objects (e.g., intelligence analysis, counterintelligence, foreign intelligence, military intelligence). For example, the organizational and functional fields highlight normative principles, such as efficiency, professionalization, and cooperation among intelligence organizations, international arenas, and private actors. As Peter Gill and Mark Phythian observe, few organizations change themselves easily and, if reform or regression takes place, it is very likely to be the result of external pressure from other, government or civil society, actors. These changes and pressures are the subjects of the governance and policy subfield in which the key question is related to the intelligence impact on government and vice versa. However, this subfield can be extended to a dmutual impact between government-mediated by intelligence agencies-and society, especially in countries of political transition and democratic consolidation.