2025/03/18 by Josiah T Lebakeng, Tshepo Gwatiwa · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Medicine · #Global Security and Public Health #Intelligence, Security, War Strategy #Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/18335330.2025.2478565
openalex publication_date 2025/03/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15
Africa faces a range of national and transnational security challenges, including from organised crime, cybercrime, terrorism, and separatism. As a result, Africa’s intelligence space is complex and involves many interlocutors and interlopers – African and non-African – pursuing a range of security interests and intelligence policy objectives. Actors include state intelligence, private intelligence, and a range of other non-state actor intelligence formations. At the same time, the role of intelligence in Africa influences security and policy in positive and negative ways. On the one hand, intelligence has informed peace support operations, contributed to thwarting transnational organised crime, and supported diplomatic engagements. On the other, intelligence has been abused to aide regime security, entrench corruption, and facilitate destabilisation by external actors. This introduction to the special issue on frontiers in African intelligence studies examines the trajectory and purpose of African intelligence practice, theory and studies within the context of global intelligence studies. The special issue showcases research looking at how African intelligence services navigate threats and opportunities and the thus provide the state of the art in African intelligence studies.