This chapter's focus is on uncovering the social discursive practice in terms of informal procedures, routines and roles that influence actions for the intelligence analyst. This social discursive practice creates a specific logic of appropriateness within the social context of the intelligence service. In this chapter, I argue that the social discursive practice contains features that suggest a specific logic of appropriateness within the ‘collective of thought’ of the intelligence collective.

MAKING INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS

The intelligence analysts express their view on what intelligence analysis should contribute, by emphasising that the analysis should be customer friendly and easily accessible, the customer should be able to make decisions based upon it, and it should describe and draw attention to new information and/or new events. It should also contextualise the events from reality and thus bring meaning to an unorganised world and in turn make decision making easier. Although these characteristics are the normal features of any kind of analysis, the intelligence analysts underline the special features that are unique to intelligence analysis.

The quotation above underlines two commonly mentioned characteristics of intelligence analysis. First, it needs to be based on secret information. That the analysis should be based on, or at least contain secret information, is a common feature for defining intelligence analysis as something specific and something different from other kinds of analysis. Second, that the nature of intelligence analysis requires an element of indecipherable analytic tradecraft mostly referred to as ‘gut feeling’ or ‘intuitive feeling’. The need for this intuitive feeling is argued by the analysts partly because of the intention of intelligence analysis to make predictions, and partly because the analysis most often is made on scarce information.