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The Puzzle of Intelligence Expertise: Spaces of Intelligence Analysis and the Production of “Political” Knowledge

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Abstract

Intelligence expertise presents a theoretical puzzle that challenges ideal-typical understandings of professional fields. Intelligence is not a strongly autonomous field where experts control the production and accreditation of knowledge. Yet, intelligence is not a field in decline. This paper explores this puzzle through the example of fusion centers, a national network of 78 interagency intelligence centers recognized by the Department of Homeland Security. It draws from over a year of fieldwork and interviews with 75 people who work in fusion centers in New York and New Jersey. It finds that the jurisdictional rivalries within fusion centers produce a dialectic tension: Efforts to secure professional autonomy are frustrated by forces that marshal intelligence expertise as a resource in larger battles in the bureaucratic field. This dialectic produces continual battles over institutional resources and a deeper definitional struggle over the nature of intelligence. Theoretically, this paper suggests that intelligence expertise is located in “spaces between fields.” While some have positioned “spaces between fields” as a transitional stage in the formation or decline of a field, intelligence expertise constitutes a unique form of expert knowledge that persists in the interstices between more established fields. As a result of this liminal and ambiguous position, intelligence expertise does not produce “rational” knowledge on its own terms. Instead, it produces “political” knowledge shaped by the shifting dynamics of the bureaucratic field.

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Notes

  1. There were many reasons for mission creep. Administrators needed to justify the resources invested, and, in the absence of threats from terrorism, analysts had to use their time constructively (Monahan and Regan 2013, 10). In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many fusion centers expanded their mission in an effort to facilitate collaboration with public health and emergency services (Rollins 2008, 21, 23).

  2. This review does not cover all the specialized intelligence literature. The interdisciplinary subfield of intelligence studies, for example, began as the professional project of CIA analaysts, who established Studies in Intelligence, a peer reviewed journal covering intelligence history and tradecraft. In 1990, the CIA partially declassified the journal. Since the end of the Cold War, intelligence studies expanded into the academic field (Westerfield 1995, xii-xvi). Reflecting its origins, however, intelligence studies remains mostly focused on foreign intelligence. For example, Intelligence and National Security, the main academic journal of US-based intelligence studies, includes only one article on fusion centers (Sims 2007).

  3. Similar to the controversy that followed the 2009 DHS report, the transition from the wartime OSS to the Cold War CIA involved scandal. A group of analysts were purged after their skeptical assessments of the USSR’s ambitions in Eastern Europe were leaked to a group of Republican senators (Simpson 1988, 58–59). Four years later in 1949, Cold War politics were so entrenched in intelligence analysis that they suppressed Project Jigsaw, a report that concluded that Moscow did not meaningfully control communist movements across the world (Barnes 1981, 651).

  4. There are several examples of intelligence analysts succumbing to pressure to support desired policing shifts. During the abandonment of détente and the massive increase in defense spending under Reagan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, for example, administration officials willfully ignored skeptical intelligence assessments and created special teams to produce conclusions that supported their desired policies (Gervasi 1986, 152–165, 209–212, 225–229; Cahn 1998, 139–162; Prados 2004; Pillar 2006; Tenent 2007, 309–318). More recently, 50 intelligence analysts went public to allege that senior officials manipulated their reports to present US efforts to overthrow the Islamic State in a more favorable light (Mazzetti and Appuzo 2015).

  5. Existing work on intelligence analysis further supports this assertion. Rob Johnston’s ethnographic study of CIA analysts finds that, although intelligence work is trending towards shorter pieces (both in length and scope), analysts still place a premium on longer-term strategic assessment. Accordingly, analysts expressed frustration with their inability to assert their analytic independence and conduct strategic assessments and other “big picture” work (Johnston 2005, 13–14, 27).

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks Philip Lewin, Sara Lillo, Brian Perkins, and Lisa Stampnitzky, along with several anonymous reviewers for Qualitative Sociology for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. I am extremely grateful to all those who agreed to be interviewed about their work in domestic intelligence.

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  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, SUNY-Cortland, Moffett Center, Room 2120, P.O. Box 2000, Cortland, NY, 13045, USA

    Brendan McQuade

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McQuade, B. The Puzzle of Intelligence Expertise: Spaces of Intelligence Analysis and the Production of “Political” Knowledge. Qual Sociol 39, 247–265 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-016-9335-6

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