ABSTRACT
Walter Laqueur’s celebrated characterisation of economic intelligence as ‘what economists do in and for intelligence agencies’ (Laqueur 1993: 40) encapsulates its epistemological (nature, methods and techniques employed, strengths and weaknesses of the knowledge provided), sociological (participants and their backgrounds) and institutional (machinery, culture and environment) features. What it lacks is the historical perspective so essential to a profound understanding of any government activity. Intelligence history must capture what is unique about intelligence and the features it shares with other government activities and institutions. This chapter investigates the history of economic intelligence in the UK where it first emerged as a distinguishable field, paying especial attention to two of its distinctive characteristics. Economic intelligence (1) serves an unusually wide range of government departments engaged in both international and domestic policy-making; and (2) outside defence intelligence an unusually high proportion of the information is either openly available or acquired by the government during the normal course of its activities.
