Domestic Intelligence in Nondemocratic Regimes

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Notes

1 Linz and Stepan introduce four different types of nondemocratic regimes: authoritarian, totalitarian, post-totalitarian, and sultanistic. In their typology, authoritarian is a category of nondemocracies. Nonetheless, most academics use the term authoritarian to describe a nondemocratic regime in general, not necessarily to depict Linz and Stepan’s specific regime. Unless the authors specify that they are referring to Linz and Stepan’s typology when they use the term authoritarian, this introduction will use authoritarian as a generic term for nondemocratic regimes. J. J. Linz and A. Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).

2 Thus, if autocrats fear the elites more, they fragment the security agencies to prevent elite challengers from ganging up to stage coups; if they fear the population more, they create efficient security service agglomerates (as was the case of East Germany’s Stasi or Romania’s Securitate) that seek to permeate and control the entire population. S. C. Greitens, Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics). (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

3 Peter Gill, Policing Politics: Security Intelligence and the Liberal Democratic State (London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1994); T. C. Bruneau and S. C. Boraz, Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007); T. C. Bruneau and K. R. Dombroski, “Reforming Intelligence: The Challenge of Control in New Democracies,” in Who Guards the Guardians and How: Democratic Civil-Military Relations, edited by T. C. Bruneau and S. D. Tollefson (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006), pp. 145–177.

4 KGB stands for Committee for State Security; StB stands for State Security; SNI stands for National Information Service.

5 Gill, Policing Politics; Bruneau and Boraz, Reforming Intelligence; Bruneau and Dombroski, “Reforming Intelligence.”

6 Florina Cristiana Matei and A. Castro García, “Transitional Justice and Intelligence Democratization,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 32, No. 4 (2019), pp. 717–736. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2019.1621106. Florina Cristiana Matei, C. Halladay, and E. Estevez, Handbook of Intelligence Cultures in Latin America and the Caribbean (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

7 For more information, see Florina Cristiana Matei, C. Halladay, and E. Estevez, Handbook of Intelligence Cultures in Latin America and the Carribean (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022).

8 Ibid.

9 In fact, it was because of these egregious human rights abuses that the verb “disappear” became a transitive verb in the region. Ibid.

10 More often than not when targeting émigrés, intelligence services in nondemocratic regimes collaborate with organized criminal groups or individual terrorists to achieve their goals. Romania’s Securitate, for example, used Carl the Jackal, the notorious terrorist, to eliminate émigrés—including Radio Free Europe journalists—who criticized the Ceaușescu regime. Florina Cristiana Matei, “Balancing Democratic Civilian Control with Effectiveness of Intelligence in Romania: Lessons Learned and Best/Worst Practices Before and After NATO and EU Integration,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2014), pp. 619–637; Florina Cristiana Matei, “The Challenges of Intelligence Sharing in Romania,” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2009), pp. 574–585; Florina Cristiana Matei, “The Legal Framework for Intelligence in Post-Communist Romania,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 22, No. 4 (2009), pp. 667–698; Florina Cristiana Matei, “The Media’s Role in Intelligence Democratization,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 27, No. 4 (2014), pp. 73–108. Florina Cristiana Matei, “Romania’s Anti-Terrorism Capabilities: Transformation, Cooperation, Effectiveness,” BIlten Slovenske Vojske (March 2010), pp. 98–103; Florina Cristiana Matei, “Romania’s Intelligence Community: From an Instrument of Dictatorship to Serving Democracy,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 20, No. 4 (2007), pp. 629–660; Florina Cristiana Matei, “Reconciling Intelligence Effectiveness and Transparency: The Case of Romania,” Strategic Insights, Vol. VI, No. 3 (2007); Florina Cristiana Matei and T. C. Bruneau, “Intelligence Reform in New Democracies: Factors Supporting or Arresting Progress,” Democratization, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2011), pp. 602–630; Florina Cristiana Matei and T. C. Bruneau, “Policymakers and Intelligence Reform in the New Democracies,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 24, No. 4 (2011), pp. 656–691; T. C. Bruneau and Florina Cristiana Matei, “Intelligence in the Developing Democracies: The Quest for Transparency and Effectiveness,” in The Oxford Handbook of National Security Intelligence, edited by Loch K. Johnson (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012); Florina Cristiana Matei and C. Halladay, The Conduct of Intelligence in Democracies: Processes, Practices, Cultures (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2019).

11 Florina Cristiana Matei, A. de Castro García, and C. C. Halladay, “On Balance: Intelligence Democratization in Post-Franco Spain,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 31, No. 4 (2018), pp. 769–804, at p. 772. http://hdl.handle.net/10945/62481

12 I. Dumitru, “Building an Intelligence Culture From Within: The SRI and Romanian Society,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2014), pp. 569–589. https://doi.org/10.1080/08850607.2014.900298

13 Matei and Bruneau, “Intelligence Reform in New Democracies”; Matei and Bruneau, “Policymakers and Intelligence Reform in the New Democracies”; Bruneau and Matei, “Intelligence in the Developing Democracies”; Matei and Halladay, The Conduct of Intelligence in Democracies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Florina Cristiana Matei

Florina Cristiana (Cris) Matei is a Senior Lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where she teaches M.A. courses for the Center for Homeland Security and Department of National Security Affairs. She is the coeditor of The Routledge Handbook of Civil-Military Relations, published in 2021; The Conduct of Intelligence in Democracies: Processes, Practices, Cultures, published in 2019; and the Handbook of Latin American and Caribbean Intelligence Cultures, published in 2022. She is the Chair of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Jeff Rogg

Jeff Rogg is an Assistant Professor at Joint Special Operations University. He is currently revising his book manuscript, The Spy and the State: The Story of American Intelligence, under contract with Oxford University Press. He also currently serves as the Communications Director/Newsletter Editor for the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association and the Virtual Speaker Series Coordinator for the North American Society for Intelligence History. The author can be contacted at [email protected].