It's a Cultural Thing: Thoughts on a Troubled cia

The CIA has recently been the subject of numerous presidential commissions and Congressional committees concerned either with the details of individual operations or with sweeping reforms in structure and organization. One of the repeated themes in these reports is that the Agency must change its “culture.” This article identifies and offers possible remedies for cultural problems in the two directorates (the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Operations) and Agency-wide, and argues for enhanced accountability.     

Sovereignty as Responsibility

This article examines the development of a new normative principle of international order, sovereignty as responsibility; its communitarian implications; and the ways in which the newly conceived responsibility of the “international community” to protect the people of states failing to live up to their responsibilities as defined by international norms can come to terms with the notion of democratic self-government.     

What Is Democracy? Liberal Institutions and Stability in Changing Societies

Is it possible to export democracy? That question underlies current U.S. foreign policy, and answering it requires an operational definition of democracy that distinguishes its essential attributes from circumstantial ones. Liberal representative government under law, sustained by a political culture that accepts open disagreement and demands accountability, provides the only form of democracy that has sustained itself over time. Democracy typically emerges from within a society, and history demonstrates the difficulty of making democracy work. Imposing it externally presents further challenges while risking a backlash. The project of spreading democracy must therefore be separated from the objective of establishing a stable order favoring American interests so that the latter end can be achieved by more modest means.     

Political Responsibility for UK Prison Security – Ministers Escape Again

Two very serious prison escapes in 1994–5 prompted the Home Secretary, Michael Howard, to dismiss the Prison Service head, Derek Lewis (a contracted businessman) who successfully sued for full compensation and costs. This sacking and law suit were unprecedented events which highlighted familiar tensions about the 'policy' and 'administrative' ('operational') distinction and what passes for the theory of individual ministerial responsibility to Parliament. This article reviews four serious prison security failures in England and Northern Ireland since 1983 and the standard ministerial posture blaming operational error rather than their own policy framework. Drawing on interviews with relevant senior figures, the exceptionally politically sensitive case of executive agency status for the Prison Service of England and Wales is considered. The 'Lewis vs. Howard' affair is placed in its context of the increasingly managerial ambitions of both 'incomer' and career civil servants which conflict with traditionally comprehensive, but symbolic, ministerial responsibility.