ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests a model for the control and oversight of security intelligence agencies that incorporates the various institutional experiments carried out in liberal democracies. A variety of structural forms for the control and oversight of these agencies have been developed in liberal capitalist states in recent years. The forms of control within security intelligence agencies will be dependent on internal processes of communication and power. In the security intelligence area, the extent to which state actions are defined as crime or not itself reflects the outcome of struggles in terms of the definition of law. In the United Kingdom, the government has attempted to maintain a strict doctrine of ministerial responsibility, that is, ministers can both control and oversee security intelligence agencies. The highest level of generality will be the manifestos adopted by outside groups and political parties that are likely to cover questions of overall oversight structures as well as security intelligence mandates.
