ABSTRACT
As a social science project, intelligence studies has its origins in the United States. US scholarship has done much to shape this project, and continues to do so. The focus of much of this scholarship, however, has been on US intelligence structures and practices, and it has not always been clear how far the conclusions of some of this scholarship are transferable beyond the confines of the US intelligence system. Increasingly, a number of intelligence scholars – both in the US and beyond – have identified the paucity of comparative analysis of intelligence as a challenge that intelligence studies must confront if it is to advance further as a social science project. This is rooted in the understanding that to ‘be effective in developing theory, and in being able to make statements about structures larger than an individual or the small group, the social sciences must be comparative’ (Peters 1998: 25). In turn, this reflects the fact that while the core responsibility of all states is to provide for the security of their citizens, the ways in which states seek to achieve this goal differs; all states ‘do’ intelligence, but there is marked variation in the extent to which they invest in it, the roles, reach and intrusiveness of intelligence bodies, and the nature and extent of their oversight.1 Comparative analysis is needed to facilitate awareness of the extent of similarities and differences, and allow for the generation of hypotheses to explain these.2 However, recognition of the comparative challenge has not resulted in a scholarly stampede to meet it, a situation at least in part attributable to the problem identified by Michael Warner; ‘the lack of agreement, among both scholars and practitioners, of just what would be compared in a comparative approach to intelligence studies’ (Warner 2009a: 11).
