Reforming national intelligence communities is a critical, if often overlooked, task facing democratizing countries. Democracy requires openness in the flow of information and discussion, while intelligence work often demands secrecy. Maintaining agencies to do such work in the midst of a generally open political culture is a challenge for any democracy. Democratizing or newly democratic countries, however, must deal with the even more arduous task of transforming intelligence bureaucracies that once served undemocratic regimes. Happily, intelligence agencies brought under civilian, democratic control may also become better at their core job of protecting free nations from deadly threats.
About the Authors
Steven C. Boraz
Steven C. Boraz, a U.S. Naval Intelligence officer, recently completed a Federal Executive Fellowship at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California.
Thomas C. Bruneau teaches in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. The views expressed in this essay are the authors’ alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Navy or the U.S. government.
Democracies rarely begin with a blank slate. Relics of authoritarian rule typically persist after democratic transitions, and these vestiges are not always harmful to people’s newfound freedom.
