Loyalty and Secret Intelligence: Anglo-Dutch Cooperation during World War II

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

In voor- en tegenspoed : Het huwelijk tussen parlement en inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdienst

Title special issue: Geheime diensten en de democratische rechtsstaa

In voor- en tegenspoed : Het huwelijk tussen parlement en inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdienst

Title special issue: Geheime diensten en de democratische rechtsstaa

Recurring tensions between secrecy and democracy : Arguments on the Security Service in Dutch parliament, 1975-1995

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