The anatomy of political impunity in New Zealand

New Zealand intelligence professionals belong to a transnational guild which, cohering around the US National Security Agency, exists primarily to enable various forms of state violence. This chapter argues that democratic controls over New Zealand intelligence activities facilitate an ongoing engagement with this guild, offering criminal immunity to those intelligence professionals directly involved in such engagement and providing political impunity to those professionals of politics who have the greatest responsibility for New Zealand's intelligence agencies. Struggling within their national field of power over the right to rule through legislative and executive power, professionals of politics elected to high office seek to limit their exposure to risks connected with this transnational guild. Intelligence scandals embroiling ministers are seized upon as opportunities to obfuscate lines of accountability. A citizenry poorly informed about the relationship between intelligence professionals and national security all but guarantees responsible ministers will never be held to account for the secret use of state violence.