BBS Faculty Member

Andrew Defty is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Lincoln, UK. He has a MA in Intelligence and International Relations from the University of Salford and a PhD in Contemporary History, with a thesis examining British covert propaganda during the Cold War.

He currently teaches across the politics and international relations programmes at the University of Lincoln and is Chair of the Lincoln Parliamentary Research Centre (ParliLinc). He coordinates The Vigilant State, a module on intelligence and national security and also runs Lincoln’s Parliamentary Studies module which is delivered with staff from the UK Houses of Parliament. He has published extensively on intelligence oversight in the UK and beyond.

His most recent book, Watching the Watchers: Parliament and the Intelligence Services, drew on interviews with more than 150 UK parliamentarians to provide a detailed analysis of the various means by which parliament has sought to scrutinise the intelligence and security agencies. He has written and presented widely on intelligence oversight including comparative research on parliamentary intelligence oversight committees in a range of states. He has contributed to a large number of parliamentary select committee and government inquiries in the UK and his research has been cited in Parliament.

He has also carried out consultancy on intelligence oversight for the Security Sector Governance programme at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). He is currently working on a study of the UK Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee and also on gender and intelligence oversight.