Series: Investigating Power

What is the purpose of an intelligence organisation? The short answer is to transform disparate and ambiguous information into a product that clarifies national security decision-making. Ideally, that process ought to be politically neutral and detached from the policy objectives of the government it serves. But what happens when intelligence ceases to be impartial and is used as a political...

Jakarta-based Andreas Harsono is one of the most knowledgeable, experienced, high-profile, and courageous reporters and commentators on contemporary Indonesian society. Race, Islam and Power: Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Suharto Indonesia is the result of Harsono's fifteen-year project to document how, in post-Suharto Indonesia, race and religion have come to be increasingly prevalent within the nation's politics. From its westernmost...

Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of Statecraft in Australian Foreign Policy is an unprecedented 230-year Australian study that reveals the central role of economic actors in defining and pursuing the 'national interest'. Australia's search for security has meant much more than protection from military invasion. It includes the security of economic interests, and the pursuit of a political...