Intelligence Governance and Democratisation: a comparative analysis of the limits of reform
Programme
12:15
Intelligence Governance and Democratisation: a comparative analysis of the limits of reform
Speaker: Professor Peter Gill
University of Leicester
hosted by: Department of Information Policy and Governance, Faculty of Media and Knowledge Sciences
13:15
Coffee Break
13:30
Informal Discussion
Abstract
This talk analyses some of the changes in intelligence governance and offers a comparative analysis of intelligence democratisation.
Within the field of Security Sector Reform (SSR), academics have paid significant attention to both the police and military. The democratisation of intelligence structures that are at the very heart of authoritarian regimes, however, have been relatively ignored. The central aim of this talk is to present a conceptual framework for the specific analytical challenges posed by intelligence as a field of governance. Using examples from Latin America and Europe, it examines some of the impact of democracy promotion and how the economy, civil society, rule of law, crime, corruption and mass media affect the success or otherwise of achieving democratic control and oversight of intelligence. The talk comes a week after the conference 'Understanding the post-truth Society' and draws on two main intellectual and political themes: intelligence studies, which is now developing rapidly from its original base in North America and UK; and democratisation studies of the changes taking place in former authoritarian regimes since the mid-1980s including security sector reform.
Speaker profile
Peter Gill, a native of London, has spent most of his career in Liverpool where he worked at the (then) Polytechnic from 1974. From 1983-86 he was Research and Information Officer for the Merseyside Police Authority before returning to the Polytechnic. He left Liverpool John Moores University in 2007 where he had become Professor of Politics and Security. From 2007-2009 he was Research Professor in Intelligence Studies at the University of Salford. In 2010 he was awarded a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship and from 2009-16 was an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool. Since 2002, in addition to teaching and research, he has been regularly involved as a consultant regarding the democratisation of intelligence, particularly in South East Europe. Until 2019, he was also a Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Leicester.
He is the author of:
- Policing Politics: security intelligence and the liberal democratic state, London, Frank Cass, 1994. Rounding up the Usual Suspects?
- Rounding Up the Usual Suspects: Developments in contemporary law enforcement intelligence, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2000.
- Intelligence Governance and Democratisation: a comparative analysis of the limits of reform, London: Routledge, 2016.