Intelligence Services and (de)coloniality

Abstract

Intelligence Services (IS), an integral part of the coercive nucleus of the State, are responsible for the formation, compilation and analysis of strategic knowledge, fundamental to support decision-making processes. Police Intelligence in the field of criminology and State Intelligence in the formulation of public policies are examples of this activity. This theoretical article, guided by a decolonial approach, intends to demonstrate the vices and the marks that suggest the coloniality of the Brazilian IS and what are the possible – and essential – paths for the construction of a decolonial, democratic, ethical and attentive model to the Brazilian idiosyncrasies . Therefore, in the first section, we characterize the IS from their most frequent classifications; in the second, we introduce the definition of coloniality and the propositions of decolonialism as an approach; in the third and last, we critically analyze central elements of the constitution and ways of functioning of the IS – securitism and its management and ethics. In view of this discussion, we take a critical stand against the unrestricted imports of IS models from the “North-Global” by peripheral countries, and we establish the main axes for a decolonial IS proposal. As theoretical findings, we identified that, in addition to strategic subsidiarity, the current Brazilian model, securitist, secretive, centralizing and hierarchical, proposed by the US and European primers of IS structure and management, establishes and strengthens exceptional military and political practices and / or undemocratic. Finally, social management and deconstruction appear as suggested practices for reversing this situation.