INTELLIGENCE AND THE IR CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH
INTELLIGENCE AND THE IR CONSTRUCTIVIST APPROACH

Summary/Abstract: There is considerable debate as to how intelligence should be defined. Should a definition include covert action or secrecy as being an important part of the activity? Is it relevant intelligence to be defined as the knowledge and foreknowledge necessary to address the external threats or different risks? The article upholds the idea that defining intelligence, implicitly or explicitly, involves adopting and assuming IR theoretical prepositions and intends to explore the implications of IR constructivist assumptions in defining intelligence. In our opinion, the task of defining intelligence is provocative because it is very difficult to reach an objective definition delineated from subjective views imbued in the author`s creeds of the preferable world system. For instance, defining intelligence in terms of agency through which states seek to protect or extend their relative advantage places the author in a political culture of organizing the world in realist perspective, with predefined actors, and reveals the dependence to particular security culture. IR constructivist approach generates alternative interpretations of world politics therefore defining intelligence through constructivist lenses would lead to new hermeneutics, allowing us to critically interpret the classical definitions of intelligence and envisage the way forward regarding the intelligence reform.

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