DE LAS INFRACCIONES Y SANCIONES FISCALES

Introduction

By comparison with other social sciences the academic study of intelligence1

is young. It has been dominated to date by Anglo-American work with primarily an historical focus, especially in the UK, and more work examining issues of organisational structure and process in the US. In the last fifteen years this has been supplemented by an increasing body of writing about other countries, especially those in Eastern Europe, Latin America and South Africa where regime change has been accompanied by some process of democratisation. Therefore what we have is an increasingly rich array of accounts of national intelligence systems including fascinating insights into processes of transition. Analyses of single agencies, companies, countries and even non-governmental organisations involved in intelligence will always provide the bedrock for intelligence studies but even where these accounts are collected together they may amount to no more than juxtaposition. Although Glenn Hastedt pointed out fifteen years ago that the comparative study of intelligence was but a fledgling,2

it is still the case that too much writing is structured with too little thought given as to how it might facilitate comparison. This chapter does not attempt a comprehensive review of the intelligence literature but draws on social science literature more generally in order to identify major issues and suggest a way forward.

Why do comparative analysis?

We need to note, first, the argument that we have no choice:

All science is comparative in the sense of depending upon analysis of multiple cases. Science is the systematic observation of many instances of a phenomenon . . .3

When people talk about comparative work, they often assume that this refers to cross-national studies; this is not necessarily the case, as we shall see below, but it is true that particular issues and problems arise in the case of cross-national work. Here, the first reason for doing

comparative analysis (as with indulging in any science) is curiosity about how the world works. But the point of comparison is not just to find out about how other people do things but also to find out about one’s own country through the study of others, as Adda Bozeman put it: “Knowing the self, knowing the other, and knowing how to measure the distance between the two . . .”4

Therefore comparative analysis is the first antidote to ethnocentrism; to argue against international study “elevates parochialism to the level of scientific principle”.5

Second, classification is the first step of any science and clearly we are interested in the classification of intelligence systems. This requires the study of multiple systems in order to generate the empirical material on which comparison can be based; some of these may be intra- national, some cross-national. Classificatory schemes in turn depend on our use of models and theory, as discussed below.

Third, any classification will throw up similarities and differences that we need to understand. But these cannot be understood simply by close examination of intelligence for

. . . intelligence is not an isolated activity. It is an integral part of government. It reflects the character of national constitutions and the societies in which it is set.6

Yet intelligence is just not any government activity – along with other security functions it has a “peculiarly intimate relationship to political power”.7

Therefore we need to examine how national systems are related to the social, political, economic and cultural conditions within which they have developed.

Fourth, this will help us to develop theory via our reformulation of problems in the light of moving beyond our own country and culture, including understanding “the other” without resorting to stereotypes or denying “difference”.8 In our writings, many of us have identified the problem of “mirror-imaging” as it afflicts analysts and prevents them from understanding other countries – we must try to avoid a similar fault.

Fifth, while the blurring of national borders that has resulted from globalisation might seem to have reduced national differences and thus the need for comparative analysis, the per- ceived need for greater cross-national co-operation with many more countries than was the case during the Cold War has dramatically increased the need for awareness of different intelligence traditions and practices. For example, this is required if intelligence-sharing agree- ments are to be negotiated and even more so if joint operations such as peacekeeping are contemplated.

Sixth, it is not just national boundaries that are blurring, so too are the traditional distinctions between the “INTS” and the sectors within which intelligence is organised. Therefore, it is no longer possible, if ever it was, to account for a national intelligence system simply in terms of, say, its state sector foreign intelligence agencies. National systems need to be examined in terms of security intelligence networks including foreign, domestic and police systems across public and private sectors.9

This is given added weight by the fact that in many areas, especially the Middle East and Africa, the state is not the “decisive working unit” for intelligence studies10 – it may be a clan, tribe, warlord or gang.

Seventh, Security Sector Reform (SSR) and within that intelligence reform, requires a sophisticated understanding of the extent to which laws, institutions and practices may be transferable from one country to another.11

Great care must be taken that inappropriate struc- tures are not foisted on countries in transition by international organisations, even if they have good intentions, or adopted by reformers simply in the hope that the ambition of early entry to EU and/or NATO will thereby be enhanced. Governing processes are complex systems and the outcome of transferring institutions will be subject to various interactions, most of them

unpredictable. In the worst case, the adoption of democratic forms may actually be regressive if they simply provide a cloak of legality for unreconstructed authoritarian practices.

How to do comparative analysis?

Comparative work in social science reflects the general tension between more positivist or behavioural approaches, on the one hand and interpretive or constructivist approaches on the other. The former seek to generate general law-like propositions that can be subjected to empirical research and validated or modified accordingly and has preferred to work quantita- tively. The latter reject the possibility of generating useful generalisations and emphasise instead the importance of understanding cultural specificity by means of qualitative methods, some- times described as “thick description”.12

Within intelligence studies, a similar debate has existed between those emphasising the shared features of different intelligence systems and those stressing the enormous differences between them. The most significant differences facing us are those between Western and non-Western societies.13

As far as the study of intelligence systems and processes are concerned, we have to recognise the significance of these differences and acknowledge the fundamental trade-off between the respective virtues of complexity and generalisation.14

For now, we are left with little choice but to conduct relatively small-scale qualitative analyses since the large data sets used in, for example, comparative voting and crime studies, simply do not exist. Even where statistics are available, they must be used with due regard for the purposes for which they were prepared.

Peters notes five types of study that are considered to be comparative within political science: (a) Single country descriptions

(b) Analyses of different processes and institutions in a limited number of countries

(c) Studies involving typologies or other forms of classification for countries or sub-national units

(d) Statistical or descriptive analyses of data from a sub-set of the countries selected in order to test a hypothesis

(e) Statistical analyses of all countries attempting to develop patterns and/or test relation- ships across the entire range.15

Intelligence studies has a significant volume of (a) but their utility increases to the extent that they deploy some common framework of analysis. Certainly, the value of collections of country studies is much greater if the editors provide contributors with a brief rather than simply requesting an account of the country in question. There is also a growing number of (b) and (c). For example, we have had for some time comparative work that focuses on “surprise”,16

on the legal basis for intelligence17

and, more recently, on the democratisation of intelligence.18 We are some way off developing (d) and I cannot imagine (e) in the foreseeable future.

Whatever our approach, however, our comparison must be adequately theorised if we are to avoid merely describing differences. Theory and empirical work are inextricably linked:

. . . theory is a guide to empirical exploration, a means of reflecting more or less abstractly upon complex processes of institutional evolution and transformation in order to highlight key periods or phases of change which warrant closer empirical scrutiny. Theory sensitises the analyst to the causal processes being elucidated, selecting from the rich complexity of events the underlying mechanisms and processes of change.19

Even if we are contemplating a single agency or country case study, our work should be theorised so that it will be of most use to other scholars embarking on comparative work.

While we may be a long way off generating the quantitative law-like propositions sought by behaviouralists, we can make use of some core concepts that appear to have applicability well beyond Anglo-American intelligence studies. I would suggest the following: surveillance, power, knowledge, secrecy and resistance.20

Surveillance is constituted by two components: first, the gathering and storing of information and, second, the supervision of people’s behaviour. In other words, it is concerned with knowledge and power: “Much of the study of intelligence concerns the relationship between power and knowledge, or rather the relationship between certain kinds of power and certain kinds of knowledge.”21

Arguably, all the non-trivial study of intelligence is concerned with this relationship. It is not a linear relationship: some- times “knowledge is power” while at others knowledge may inform the exercise of power. Yet, as we have seen in the case of Iraq, at other times power may determine what is “knowledge”.

Suggesting concepts have universal application is to invite accusations of cultural imperialism but we need to start somewhere. Indeed, establishing the different national understandings of core terms is itself an important study in order to avoid “careless conceptualisation”.22

If interviewer and interviewee use the same words but understand quite different things by them we have a serious problem. This can occur even within one’s own culture but the danger increases in line with the cultural distance between those involved – concepts do not always travel well. Yet “surveillance” travels better than most.

In contemporary Western social theory surveillance is seen both as the central aspect of the establishment of modern “sovereign” state forms23

and of the more recent decline of sovereignty as it is replaced by “governance” including the concomitant recognition of the significance of private forms of governance. Furthermore, studies of non-Western societies show that surveillance is similarly central there: its philosophical basis may be crucially different, for example, rooted in the rejection of individualism, but its core goals – understanding and control – are constants.24

So, not surprisingly, global surveillance is argued to be an intrinsic part of the general economic restructuring of capitalism that is referred to as globalisation, and post-9/11 developments have served only to accelerate this already existing trend.

Secrecy is not just a defining element of intelligence because it distinguishes intelligence structures and processes from many other aspects of governance but also because its targets – individual, organisational and state – seek to keep their affairs secret. Secrecy may also apply to power: some actions make no sense unless carried out with an element of “surprise” such as arrests. But there are other, more controversial examples where actions are taken secretly in the hope that responsibility can be disguised or “plausibly denied”.

Attempts to maintain personal privacy or business confidentiality are forms of resistance to the efforts of others to collect information. But if privacy fails then lying and deception are other forms of resistance. Evaluation or analysis is, in turn, an attempt to resist the attempt of others to mislead. Resistance to other forms of power such as coercion may well take on a more physical aspect but often these will be intertwined with the use of information. The central point here is that the relation between surveillance and its subjects is dialectical: efforts at gathering information and wielding power (in whatever form) will provoke greater or lesser attempts to resist. If resistance succeeds then fresh approaches to surveillance may be deployed and so on.25

Pathways for comparative research

Surveillance is the core governing process that incorporates the central knowledge–power relationship. Within intelligence studies our more specific research focus is a sub-set of sur- veillance: the intelligence process. This is a commonly deployed tool already and is normally characterised in terms of targeting, gathering, analysis and dissemination. Of course, this is an analytical device; in practice intelligence is far from linear. Just how “process” is understood in different national systems is a fundamental research question. (Phrases in italic indicate headings in Table 6.1 that appears below)

In social sciences the device of “levels” is used in order to simplify what is a highly complex reality. The research elements correspond to the “levels” of analysis usually identified: individual, small-group, organisational, societal and trans-societal. Each provides the context for, and is influenced by, the actions and dispositions of those “below”. But phenomena or actions at any one level cannot be explained simply in terms of processes or properties at lower “levels”: new causal factors and mechanisms emerge at each level – the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.26

At each of these levels we can identify theoretical approaches that already exist within social science and that can be deployed by scholars and researchers. Our choice of theoretical approach will depend largely on the “level” of our analysis but, in order to develop our discipline, analysts must test out alternative approaches with a view to identifying those that are most fruitful. For example, if, at the macro level, we are seeking to explain the different capacities of national intelligence systems then an approach drawn from political economy relating governmental structures and ideologies to national wealth would seem to be appro- priate.27

If we were interested in examining the conditions under which international intelligence-sharing is most likely to take place, then relevant theories from international relations would be appropriate.

Comparisons may be made along a historical dimension: it was noted at the outset of the chapter that historical work constitutes the bulk of UK research and this has been much invigorated by the continuing flow of file releases that commenced in the post-Thatcher era. Studies of single agencies, operations and countries at particular times are important both in their own right and as potential building blocks for broader, comparative work but there are significant methodological differences between, for example, comparing different historical “snapshots” and examining the process of change itself, as in the work of historical institutionalists.28

Also, in the form of comparative analysis with which we are most familiar, studies may be conducted on a spatial dimension. In order to build on the now extensive array of country studies, the time is now ripe for more detailed comparative work, for example, at the meso level, comparing who are recruited as intelligence officers to agencies in the same country or to equivalent agencies in different countries. Similarly, the impact of organisational cultures and the phenomenon of “groupthink” might be studied intra- or inter-nationally. Phil Davies provides an interesting comparison of intelligence cultures in UK and US with their relative tendencies to collegiality or conflict and how these account for failures up to and including Iraq.29

But are “groupthink”, “turf wars” and other “pathologies” of the intelligence process confined to Anglo-American liberal democracies or are they also a problem in Rechtstaat countries of Europe, or Asian countries with a more communitarian approach to matters of security?30

Analysts will use various research techniques as they focus on different levels of intelligence processes in order to produce the detailed empirical work we need but individual case-studies

must be conducted with an awareness of the larger picture. We know already how important are the mutual interactions between these “levels”: for example, how the organisation of intelli- gence agencies reflects broader issues of political culture and regime type or how the formal bureaucratic organisation of agencies clashes with the working preferences of officers working in specialised groups. At the organisational level a particularly important issue for research is the relationships between state agencies and those “beyond the state” in the corporate and com- munity sectors. If cases are to be compared, there are two main ways in which this can be done: taking those agencies or countries that are apparently similar and examining their differences or taking those that are ostensibly very different and looking for similarities.31

Another approach

Table 6.1 A map for theorising and researching intelligence

Historical dimension

Research element Research focus: intelligence process Theoretical approaches

Spatial dimension

context (a) (trans-societal)

international relations; transnational corporations; international co-operation

macro (a): realism, international political economy, constructivism nature of regime through history context (b) (societal)

macro social organisation: values, traditions, forms of organisation and power relations, e.g., types of regime,

macro (b): hierarchies, markets, networks; realism, idealism, constructivism; social divisions (i) study of intelligence at different “levels”: transnational national and of

transition sectors of intermediate social organisation: meso:

local/ regional between regimes setting (organisational) state: departments, agencies corporate: profit- making corporations community: neighbour- hood, community associations, non-gov- ernmental organisa- tions (NGOs) incrementalism; rational action; bureaucratic politics; cybernetic systems; profit- maximisation; risk-minimisa- tion; organisational cultures (ii) comparative studies situated activity (small group)

face-to-face activity in small work micro (a) social

psychology; “groupthink” self (individual) self-identity and individual’s social micro (b)

cognitive psychology

Research techniques

Taking “slices” across levels and sectors, applying theoretical approaches to case studies, for example, comparisons between states, regime transitions, intelligence “successes” and “failures”, modifying those approaches in the light of research findings and so on . . .

might be problem-oriented, for example, how do different agencies or national systems deal with the problem of politicisation? Hypothetical questions might be posed: if a minister or political appointee orders an intelligence official to carry out an intelligence operation that the