"It was well known to the Greeks that the phenomenon of vagueness in natural language gives rise to hard problems and paradoxes, yet more than two millennia passed before Philosophy began to pay any degree of concerted attention to the challenges of vagueness to match the effort expended, for example, on the Liar paradox and its kin. This situation changed dramatically in the last quarter of the twentieth century, when the Sorites paradox in particular began to provoke a dramatic intensification of research and publication. Crispin Wright has been in the international vanguard of the resulting modern debates that have attracted some of the most distinguished contemporary philosophers of logic and language. The Riddle of Vagueness collects together fourteen of Wright's highly influential publications in this field. The chapters together encompass almost half a century of evolving thought on the central problems and challenges which vagueness poses: what exactly is vagueness, what does its pervasiveness in natural language show about the nature of language mastery, is it desirable to modify classical logic and semantics in the face of the Sorites and, if so, what form should the modifications take? Richard Kimberly Heck contributes a substantial introduction to the volume, providing an invaluable summary of these fundamental issues, and an overview and evaluation in depth of the evolving course of Wright's ideas about them."--Publisher's description

This book features a comparative study in intelligence accountability and governance across the Five Eyes: the imperative for member countries of the world's most powerful intelligence alliance to reconcile democracy and security through transparent standards, guidelines, legal frameworks, executive directives, and international law. It argues that intelligence accountability is best understood not as an end in itself but as a means that is integral democratic governance. On the one hand, to assure the executive of government and the public that the activities of intelligence agencies are lawful and, if not, to identify breaches in compliance. On the other hand, to raise awareness of and appreciation for the intelligence function, and whether it is being carried out in the most effective, efficient, and innovative way possible to achieve its objective. The analysis shows how the addition of legislative and judicial components to executive and administrative accountability has been shaping evolving institutions, composition, practices, characteristics, and cultures of intelligence oversight and review in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand using a most-similar systems design. Democracies are engaged in an asymmetric struggle against unprincipled adversaries. Technological change is enabling unprecedented social and political disruption. These threat vectors have significantly affected, altered, and expanded the role, powers and capabilities of intelligence organizations. Accountability aims to reassure sceptics that intelligence and security practices are indeed aligned with the rules and values that democracies claim to defend.

'Intelligence and Statecraft' explores the constant nature and limits of intelligence, and examines how the practices of intelligence collection and analysis have remained essentially unchanged since the Roman era.

This book addresses the development, and the challenges and impediments, to democratic oversight and review of the intelligence community in Australia, Japan, Canada, New Zealand, the US and UK. The promotion of democratic oversight of the intelligence community has gained renewed significance in the aftermath of 9/11.

This book analyses changes in intelligence governance and offers a comparative analysis of intelligence democratisation. Within the field of Security Sector Reform (SSR), academics have paid significant attention to both the police and military. The democratisation of intelligence structures that are at the very heart of authoritarian regimes, however, have been relatively ignored. The central aim of this book is to develop a conceptual framework for the specific analytical challenges posed by intelligence as a field of governance. Using examples from Latin America and Europe, it examines the impact of democracy promotion and how the economy, civil society, rule of law, crime, corruption and mass media affect the success or otherwise of achieving democratic control and oversight of intelligence. The volume draws on two main intellectual and political themes: intelligence studies, which is now developing rapidly from its original base in North America and UK; and democratisation studies of the changes taking place in former authoritarian regimes since the mid-1980s including security sector reform. The author concludes that, despite the limited success of democratisation, the dangers inherent in unchecked networks of state, corporate and para-state intelligence organisations demand that academic and policy research continue to meet the challenge. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, democracy studies, war and conflict studies, comparative politics and IR in general.

This illuminating collection of essays presents a new agenda for the study and deployment of analytical strategic intelligence.