Intelligence Studies: some thoughts on the state of the art

Abstract

The paper is not intended to be a comprehensive review of the field of Intelligence Studies but summarises the major currents in research in this area, in the last twenty years. In addition, it suggests directions for future research concluding that Intelligence Studies represents a healthy and growing activity of great relevance to contemporary security governance. There are identified a few challenges for the development of the domain, mainly the fact that Anglo-American authors and subject matter continue to dominate the literature, and the fact that the relations between the academic institutions and intelligence agencies, the civil-military relations, have not always been easy.