2025/09/01 by Lincoln Cave · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Global Peace and Security Dynamics #Global Security and Public Health #Peacebuilding and International Security
paper · doi:10.1080/18335330.2025.2550997
openalex publication_date 2025/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15
The responsibilities of security and intelligence services continue to be an area of extensive scrutiny by external stakeholders. Their national mandates at a multilateral level shape mutually inclusive governance arrangements, as evident in the adopted rules and regulations. For the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA), the approved normative standards define the institutional governance framework and reinforce CISSA’s moral obligation of collective responsibility for the common good. The paper examines the duties of CISSA as the primary provider of intelligence on matters of peace and security to the African Union. The article focuses on CISSA's governance profile, key to which are the normative standards associated with CISSA’s purpose. The central theme of this analysis is CISSA’s ethical credibility as a strategic governance outcome of the multilateral’s mandated intelligence responsibilities. For CISSA, ethical credibility remains a key public value characterisation in its collective role in tackling continental security threats. The article adopts social constructivism to identify and analyse the normative and social factors to CISSA’s common good responsibilities. It finds that the intelligence culture, norms and identity best explain both the organisational framework and the governance challenges to CISSA’s core purpose.