Democracy and Effectiveness: Adapting Intelligence for the Fight Against Terrorism

Abstract

Several countries in South America have recently undertaken reforms of their intelligence systems, and other countries in the region are now beginning similar reforms. While in most cases the initial motivation was to bring the intelligence agencies under democratic civil control as one of the last phases of democratic consolidation, civilian governments and military leaders are today increasingly motivated to reform their intelligence systems in order to better respond to threats from organized crime and terrorism.