CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITY
CULTURAL INFLUENCES ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITY

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, in which I will consider the relation between national cultures and intelligence cultures as subsets of nations’ strategic cultures, I address three topics regarding cultural influences on intelligence activity. First, the ‘for whom’-question gets far too little attention in intelligence studies, although it has a major impact on the self-concept of people working in intelligence, the roles they play, the work they do and the way they legitimize their activities. Second, threats are still too often seen as hard-boiled facts in intelligence studies, the only question being whether intelligence organizations detect them early enough. Third, developments in the task environment of intelligence and security organizations will increasingly collide with ideas and opinions from the same organizations’ value environments.

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