The Future of Intelligence by Reijn Joop van Duyvesteyn Isabelle Jong Ben de

Author:Reijn, Joop van,Duyvesteyn, Isabelle,Jong, Ben de
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135095635
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Nodal governance

These developments, however, are not a phenomenon related exclusively to the intelligence community; nor are they the only response to the emerging networked world of terrorism. The governance of security has been radically transformed in recent decades. Established notions are based on the idea of autonomous, territorially bound nation-states in which state agencies like the police, border guards and intelligence services are responsible for the delivery of security. Today, we inhabit a world of multi-level, multi-centre security governance, in which states are joined, criss-crossed and contested by an array of transnational organizations and factors that operate via regional and global governmental bodies, commercial security outfits and informal networks (Wood and Shearing 2007: 3). One could think, for instance, of global private players like Control Risk or Stratfor, which deliver a range of security and intelligence products and services to both private and public parties and who work together with public intelligence agencies in informal or personal networks.

This has been termed the ‘nodal governance’ of security, consisting of a plurality of decision centres in which no clear hierarchy between centres exists; the core of the decision structures itself consists of networks; the boundaries of decision structures are fluid; and the actors include professional experts, and public and private actors (Goetz 2008: 262). Whether the state in this new fluid security amalgam is ‘stripped of its commanding heights’ (Neocleous 2007: 346), ‘hollowed out’ and is just one ‘nodal actor’ among many, or whether it continues to function as a kind of ‘eminence grise’, a ‘shadow entity lurking off-stage’ (Hawkins 1984: 190), is a subject of fierce academic debate (van Buuren 2010). Leaving this dispute aside for a moment, there seems to be agreement among scholars studying and researching changes in governance that nowadays we are facing the multiplication of auspices and providers of security (Shearing and Wood 2003: 406), and that security is not provided only by the institutions of the state, nor shaped solely by thinking and acting originating from the state sphere (Wood and Shearing 2006).

These insights from governance theory on the nodalization and hybridization of security (vertical and horizontal models of security governance and practices are combined together in more or less integrated modes of interaction), however, seem to be overlooked when it comes to the study of European intelligence and security cooperation. The story of this cooperation is commonly told from an institutional perspective, centring on treaties, structures, competences, legal powers and institutional developments (Bendiek 2006; Bossong 2008; Kaunert 2010; Monar 2007; Müller-Wille 2002; Zimmermann 2006). Typical questions that arise from this perspective would be as follows: What are the opportunities offered by the new Lisbon Treaty for intelligence cooperation? What will be the influence of qualified majority voting in the relevant European institutions? How relevant are the new powers of the European Parliament? How should we appreciate the new European External Action Service? Is the European Joint Situation Centre (van Buuren 2009) the embryo of a true European central intelligence agency?

It is not that these kinds of questions are irrelevant.

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