Philip H. J. Davies is one of a growing number of British academic scholars of intelligence, but the only academic to approach the subject in terms of political science rather than history. He wrote his PhD at the University of Reading on the topic 'Organisational Development of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service 1909-1979', and has published extensively on intelligence and defence issues. After completing his PhD he taught for a year and a half on the University of London external degree programme in Singapore before returning to the UK to lecture at the University of Reading for two years. He was formerly Associate Professor of International and Security Studies at the University of Malaya in Malaysia where he not only conducted his research but provided a range of training and consultancy services to the Malaysian intelligence and foreign services. He is now based at Brunel University, UK

MI6 and the Machinery of Spying is a study of the organizational evolution of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, aka MI6). It traces the development of the agency's internal structure from its inception until the end of the Cold War. The analysis examines how SIS's management structure has been driven by its operational environment on the one hand and its position within the machinery of British central government on the other. Particularly close attention is paid to the agency's institutional links to its consumers in Whitehall and Downing Street, as well as to the causes and consequences of its operational organization and provisions for counter-espionage and security. This book challenges long-standing perceptions that SIS is poorly organized and chronically mismanaged, as well as claims that it was traditionally unaccountable to political oversight and control.