The Missing Dimension’s Missing Dimension
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| Published date | 01 January 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076709347071 |
| Author | Philip H.J. Davies |
| Subject Matter | Editorial |
Editorial
The Missing Dimension’s Missing Dimension
Philip H.J. Davies
Brunel University, UK
As this edition of Public Policy and Administration was being assembled in 2009
Britain’s two of Britain’s intelligence and security agencies were preparing to
celebrate their centenary. The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6) and the
Security Service (MI5) were originally established as a combined Secret Service
Bureau in the late summer of 1909. In the new year of 1910 they formally parted
company to become separate Foreign and Home Sections later acquiring their
present designations out of a succession of intelligence reorganizations during
and after the First World War. Consequently this article will be published on the
centenary of their existence as separate agencies. This is, therefore, as apposite
a time as one could ask for to reflect on the status and impact of those agencies,
and intelligence agencies in general, as part of the wider administrative systems
of government within which they operate and on whose behalf they act. It is also
a good time to undertake such a discussion since political scientists today have
access to a wealth of both current and historical information that was not really
available before the first half of the 1990s.
Ever since David Dilks and Christopher Andrew first resuscitated and popu-
larized Sir Alexander Cadogan’s characterization of intelligence as the ‘missing
dimension of diplomatic history’ in 1984 (Andrew and Dilks, 1984, p. 1) the idea
has served as a guiding principle to anyone advocating and promoting the schol-
arly study of intelligence. And intelligence is, indeed, the missing dimension of
many aspects of government. It plays a role not only in obvious matters of defence
and security policy, but also in trade negotiations, the pursuit of transnational
organized crime and many more policy areas besides. But it is a far less hidden
dimension than once it was. Since the early 1990s there has been a sea-change in
the volume and quality of intelligence scholarship and writing. In part this has
been made possible by a significant increase in governmental openness, in the UK
DOI: 10.1177/0952076709347071
Philip H.J. Davies, Director, Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, School of Social Sciences,
Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK. [email: philip.davies@brunel.ac.uk] 5
© The Author(s), 2010.
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