‘Politicization of Australian Intelligence Is Alive and Well’ (Book Review) in the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence

• posted October 16, 2020

My book review of Justin T. McPhee’s Spinning the Secrets of State: Politics and Intelligence in Australia was published in the Fall 2021 issue of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence. You can read that review here.

McPhee’s book raises important questions about whether one can examine occurrences of intelligence politicization without probing their origins in the fundamental means, forms, and ends of politics itself. An examination of intelligence politicization may require context for its occurrence within the nature or structure of a regime. For example, how does intelligence politicization arise within parliamentary systems versus constitutional republics? Does it arise naturally in both? Comparatively speaking are those occurrences unique in character to the regimes where they occur?

The question extends to a regime’s placement within international relations. Historically speaking, Australian intelligence requirements appear to have been politicized adversely by the government’s relationship to the United Kingdom, a larger power, which had unique strategic objectives and security concerns that overcame the latter’s.

You can purchase McPhee’s book, Secrets of State: Politics and Intelligence in Australia here.