New article by Stefanie Kirchweger and Franz Eder in Foreign Policy Analysis
Abstract
Intelligence agencies operate in complex international relations alongside official foreign policy, yet the interactions between these concealed and official layers remain underexplored in Foreign Policy Analysis. This article addresses this gap by theorizing intelligence agencies’ international relations as distinct yet embedded processes within foreign policy. It proposes a comparative framework to explain how and to what extent these relations are integrated into foreign-policy processes, what interaction effects they generate over time, and what roles they assume. Applied to Austrian–Israeli relations in the 1970s, the analysis demonstrates how both states used intelligence agencies’ relations as secret crisis management channels, yet under different patterns of political and organizational integration and foreign-policy rationales: Austria outsourced politically costly engagement to an insulated security apparatus, while Israel relied on closely integrated intelligence agencies to bypass diplomatic constraints and secure strategic objectives.
The entire article is available as open access: 10.1093/fpa/orag028