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The intertwined relation between policy and intelligence has long been considered a vital issue for intelligence studies. However, this article argues that the role of the intelligence services as producers of knowledge within policy processes has not yet been thoroughly discussed within academia. One possible overall theoretical framework for studying intelligence in its role as knowledge producer is that of policy analysis, especially if the variance of intelligence’s impact on policy is under scrutiny. More specifically, this article argues that the theoretical approaches within critical policy analysis and policy network analysis constitute productive frameworks for research into the intelligence–policy nexus.

Builds a revisionary theoretical framework for researching intelligence knowledge and applies it to the Swedish Military and Security Directorate

Gunilla Eriksson revises our perception of intelligence as carefully collected data and objective truth, arguing that there are hidden aspects to intelligence analysis that need to be uncovered and critically examined. This twofold study investigates the character of intelligence knowledge and the social context in which it is produced, using the Swedish Military and Security Directorate (MUST) as a case study.

Eriksson argues that there is an implicit framework that continuously influences knowledge production: what kind of data is considered relevant, how this data is interpreted and the specific social and linguistic context of the organisation, surrounded by unarticulated norms and specific procedures. She asks whether these conventions hamper or obstruct intelligence assessments; an essential analysis, given that history has shown us the grave consequences basing policy on intelligence's wrong conclusions.

Sources include

• The annual Swedish Armed Forces Strategic Intelligence Estimates from 1998–2010
• Lengthy and highly valuable interviews with the analysts, including managers, working at MUST, giving insights into everyday life at the institution and leading to many important results
• Participant observation carried out by the author at MUST working meetings and seminars during the production process of the 2010 estimate, and drawing on her experience from her years working as an active analyst

The Swedish Military Intelligence and Security Directorate (MUST) is a producer of knowledge, a knowledge that is fundamental for decisionmaking in foreign and security policy. The intelligence knowledge production is often held as objective, value neutral, and with the intention of ‘speaking truth onto power’. However, this study holds that such a perspective on intelligence knowledge production calls for a revision. Hence, the overall purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of knowledge in intelligence analysis and also to investigate how that knowledge is affected by the social context of its production, the military intelligence service. The source material is of three kinds; first texts and documents, second interviews with intelligence analysts and managers, and third observations of seminars and meetings during the production process of estimates.

The results are that there is a strong presence of an implicit interpretive framework that continuously influences and guides the knowledge production and thereby makes the knowledge dependent on one specific perspective contrary to the intentional objectivity within the intelligence service. Further, the study reveals that the social and discursive practices for intelligence knowledge production include a ‘logic of appropriateness’ suggesting the presence of a structured Denkkollektiv with a structuredDenkstil. The actions and choices of the individuals are transformed to create conformity to the norms within the social discursive practices. Thus, the inherited frame of interpretation, as well as the socialised norm of staying within the existing accepted frames ofthinking and acting ends up to the stability and duration of the not always accurate and fruitful Denkstil.

At the core of political science resides the question of how policy is shaped. Even though this study has focused merely on one organisation in a specific policy field in one country it brings insights to the knowledge and policy nexus.