The architecture of community: Intelligence community management in Australia, Canada and New Zealand

Abstract

While many have examined individual intelligence agencies and cooperation between agencies bilaterally, the study of the interdepartmental architecture that is meant to coordinate intelligence communities has been peripheral at best. This is especially true in the case of smaller states, such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, this architecture is fundamentally important to our understanding of how the secret state operates; how it impacts, and is impacted by, the open state; and, when taken comparatively, is indicative of differing government cultures towards intelligence. Examination of the development of intelligence community management architecture in Australia, Canada and New Zealand reveals that actors in all three communities recognise networks of interdependency between them. However the extent to which they are able to exploit these interdependencies is dependent on larger dynamics in government, supporting the idea that intelligence communities can only be as cohesive as the governments they serve allow them to be.