Changing Conditions for Informal Actors in Intelligence Oversight? The Case of Swedish Journalists

Recent scholarship in critical intelligence studies emphasizes the role of informal actors in democratic oversight, encouraging increased attention to practices and struggles of accountability. Less probed are the fundamental conditions enabling the work of informal oversight actors, and current struggles over such conditions. This article turns to the case of Sweden, a top-ranking state in the press freedom index, to examine contemporary struggles surrounding the conditions for one informal actor in oversight: the media. Independent journalists can both scrutinize and legitimize intelligence work, thereby mediating between the intelligence services and the public. Journalists are however dependent on press freedom, source protection and epistemic trust to perform this key democratic function. Although Sweden represents a ‘least likely’ case for declining conditions for journalistic work, the article pinpoints three core points of tension between journalists and lawmakers: press freedom vs. national security; source protection vs. surveillance and elite delegitimization of journalists vs. epistemic trust. By examining public debates and legislation affecting journalistic scrutiny of intelligence, the article speaks to broader debates on the current struggles of informal actors in democratic intelligence oversight – such as NGOs, civil society activists, academics, and journalists – in a context of rising geopolitical tensions and global democratic backsliding, generating increased external and internal pressures on liberal democratic states.