ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the specific questions of what kind of political society exists: a lack of a coherent national community or of effective and responsive institutions will all diminish stateness. It examines the main organisational changes that have been made in the effort to democratise intelligence. The chapter discusses the progress regarding state agencies and the vexed question of how secret organisations can be subjected to external oversight. It considers experience to date with the oversight of state agencies that has been the major concern in democratising intelligence. National intelligence structures suffer frequently from the non-sharing of information among different agencies and it is vital that oversight bodies do not fall into the same trap by defending turf and failing to cooperate. Jason Brownlee notes that parties are double-edged tools: they may be valuable for democratic consolidation but may also be used to suppress pluralism.
