Eleni Braat - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Eleni Braat

Justitiële verkenningen, 2017

Politics and Governance, Dec 28, 2018

Secrecy and informal organisation produce, sustain, and reinforce feelings of loyalty within inte... more Secrecy and informal organisation produce, sustain, and reinforce feelings of loyalty within intelligence and security services. This article demonstrates that loyalty is needed for cooperation between intelligence partners as well as within and between services. Under many circumstances, loyalty plays a larger role in the level of internal and external collaboration than formal work processes along hierarchical lines. These findings are empirically based on the case study of Anglo-Dutch intelligence cooperation during World War II. By demonstrating that 'loyalty' critically affects the work of intelligence communities, this article contributes to current and future research that integrates history, intelligence studies, and research on emotions.

Historein, Aug 27, 2022

Review of Paul Genoni and Tanya Dalziell, Half the Perfect World: Writers, Dreamers and Drifters ... more Review of Paul Genoni and Tanya Dalziell, Half the Perfect World: Writers, Dreamers and Drifters on Hydra, 1955–1964. Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2019. 432 pp. To view the full text, click on the button "HTML".

Routledge eBooks, Oct 2, 2020

You can talk about your work with colleagues from outside your section or team. But you cannot ge... more You can talk about your work with colleagues from outside your section or team. But you cannot get into the fundamental issues. […] You can talk about an [ongoing] operation, but in general terms: 'I'm running an operation, it's going smoothly,' you know. By doing so, you haven't told the other anything, but you have told him that things are going fine. […] That's the way you grow up. You're entirely moulded by the organisation. I wouldn't know any better. Interview with former employee of the Dutch Security Service (Braat 2012, p. 100) Few sectors of the state bureaucracy are as secretive as the intelligence and security services. Secrecy shields intelligence staff from direct accountability within and outside the organisation and provides them with greater discretion in the performance of their professional tasks than most other domains of state bureaucracies. What is the impact of such a high degree of secrecy on the internal dynamics of an organization? Scholars in intelligence studies generally disregard secrecy practices as a separate object of study, just as intelligence communities come to take secrecy for granted. The practice of secrecy features only implicitly in classical intelligence research, which generally favours the anecdotal analysis of exciting intelligence operations (e.g. Andrew and Mitrokhin 2000, Andrew 2010, Jefferey 2010). It also features only indirectly in literature on intelligence oversight and accountability (e.g. Born et.

Justitiële verkenningen, Mar 1, 2018

South East Asia Research, Mar 1, 2011

The international disarmament debate of the 1920s provided an important opportunity for the Nethe... more The international disarmament debate of the 1920s provided an important opportunity for the Netherlands to raise the international profile of its colonial interests. This paper examines how Dutch participants in the disarmament debate combined the long-lived Dutch principle of neutrality with the different geopolitical situation of the Dutch East Indies. It shows that (1) Dutch delegates did not strictly interpret and apply the principle of neutrality to their colony in the Pacific. This seems contrary to (2) the Dutch perception that the position in Europe was almost identical to the situation in the Pacific. The little attention paid to these different interests in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies arguably developed from (3) a surprising naivety and provincialism concerning the geopolitical position of the Dutch East Indies. These three related conclusions illustrate the unfortunate composition of the delegations to the disarmament negotiations and the ignorance with which the Foreign Ministry intervened in colonial issues, arguably also indicating that Dutch colonial external relations and defence policy were ill-defined and not effectively adapted to the Pacific context.

International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, May 10, 2022

Presses universitaires du Septentrion eBooks, 2008

Defense date: 24/11/2008Examining Board: Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (European University Institute... more Defense date: 24/11/2008Examining Board: Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (European University Institute) - supervisor Prof. Georges Dertilis (École des hautes études en sciences sociales) Prof. Kiran Patel (European University Institute) Prof. Henk te Velde (Universiteit Leiden)The decade after World War I saw the daring creation of the League of Nations: West European security had to be preserved through cooperation in transnational networks instead of through traditional multilateral expedients, and a new generation of diplomats had to enhance open diplomacy, push away the international, aristocratic elite, and democratize politics. Peace movements appeared on the international stage, and blew a fierce ideological wind over Europe. This hopeful change experienced its halcyon days around 1925-1928, when Europe as well as the Pacific encountered a true détente. This thesis deals with these changes in international security matters, incited by World War I and the subsequent creation of the League of Nations, and their consequences for Dutch foreign policy

Intelligence and national security, Jun 8, 2015

There is a recurring tension between secrecy and democracy. This article analyzes the continually... more There is a recurring tension between secrecy and democracy. This article analyzes the continually ambiguous relations between intelligence and security agencies and their parliamentary principals. I present a novel conceptual framework to analyze political relations influenced by secrecy. I draw on Albert Hirschman's concepts of exit, voice and loyalty and Max Weber's ideal types of the ethics of conviction and responsibility. The focus is a case study of the Dutch parliament and Security Service between 1975 and 1995. The analysis demonstrates how parliament can deal constructively with the secret services. This depends both on party-political responses to secrecy and strategic responses on the part of the secret services to deteriorating relationships with parliament. Secrecy evokes varied reactions; persons may refuse to accept it, be irritated or admiring, or display trust and compliance when faced with secrecy. Secrecy in parliament, more specifically, can lead to a range of responses vis-à-vis secret services. It complicates the relationship between parliament and the secret services. Democracy and secrecy do not make a happy match: secret government activities can only be partly controlled by citizens, and a democratic government-by means of citizen rights and constitutional principles-requires a certain degree of publicity. It is nonetheless the case that security and intelligence services both operate in secrecy and exist in democratic regimes. This paradox arises from the fact that 'intelligence is, in some sense, the last frontier for attempts to democratise previously authoritarian regimes' 1

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 2023

Military dictatorships critically rely on the armed forces and intelligence agencies for the main... more Military dictatorships critically rely on the armed forces and intelligence agencies for the maintenance of their regime. They strengthen these through the allocation of substantial staff and personal resources. We know little about the behaviour of intelligence and security services in the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. This article examines the Greek Intelligence Service (KYP) and, since 1986, the National Intelligence Service (EYP) as its successor. A principal ingredient for the democratic embedment of the Service was a break with this dictatorial past and, consequently, its demilitarization. This article shows that the de facto demilitarization of the Service was a protracted process that was largely independent from the de jure formal demilitarization in 1986. It both preceded and lagged the legislative decision in 1986. This article particularly focusses on personnel policies aimed at distancing the Service from its former ties to the junta regime (1967-1974), the “old KYP”. Its methodological contribution lies in its reliance on original, oral history interviews with former employees of the Service and in its systematic analysis of newspaper publications for research on the Greek Intelligence Service. I argue and show that internal organizational factors, most notably professionalization and shifting responsibilities, rather than external factors such as party politics or a pro-democratic ideological vision, are the key explanations for a change in the otherwise persistent military staffing of the intelligence service.

1989 and the West, 2019

Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing... more Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.

Historein

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence

Abstract: While scholarly literature has paid attention to human intelligence professionalism fro... more Abstract: While scholarly literature has paid attention to human intelligence professionalism from the perspective of the agent handler, we know relatively little about the precarious positions in which (double) agents often find themselves and what their ensuing needs from their handlers consist of. This article suggests that (double) agents desire a reciprocal, affect-based relationship with their handlers, involving trust and gratitude, more than just a negotiated relationship based on (financial) agreements. This article explains the importance of such a relationship. The main source of this research consists of original, in-depth oral history interviews with former double agent “M.” He operated from the 1960s through the 1990s for the Dutch Security Service and the Central Intelligence Agency against the East German Ministerium fu€r Staatssicherheit. The article analyzes the varying degrees of appreciation that these services showed for his work, and it investigates their consequences on the psychological well-being of the double agent.

Perspectives on Military Intelligence from the First World War to Mali, 2017

This introductory chapter discusses 100 years of military intelligence and outlines the main chan... more This introductory chapter discusses 100 years of military intelligence and outlines the main changes that distinguish the post-Cold war period from the preceding one. This is characterised by a blurring of the boundaries between civilian and military intelligence, between investigative services and the intelligence community, and the foreign and domestic realms. The chapter also discusses the rise of oversight mechanisms. All these combined with unprecedented technological change to produce a challenging environment for intelligence services that is more unpredictable than ever before, and at the same time requires adequate, even pre-emptive responses on the part of the intelligence community. The dazzling level of adaptivity required largely obscures the fact that such adaptations were required in earlier periods as well, and intelligence professionals could profit by studying them.

Transparency and Secrecy in European Democracies, 2020

International Solidarity in the Low Countries during the Twentieth Century, 2020

This chapter discusses the ‘accountability gap’ with regard to international intelligence coopera... more This chapter discusses the ‘accountability gap’ with regard to international intelligence cooperation. As a result of globalisation, and especially after 9/11, this cooperation has become vital for national security. But as mechanisms of oversight and accountability are national only, they have had trouble keeping track of these developments. The chapter discusses the reasons why intelligence accountability is problematic, and proposes an innovative analytical instrument for closing this gap.