Costa Rica

Abstract

Like other consolidated democracies around the world,1 Costa Rica has striven to balance its democratic and peaceful principles with its requirements to maintain security and intelligence services. Costa Rican national identity is associated with peace, disarmament, and human rights; however, its intelligence services are rooted in Costa Rica’s past militaristic institutions and authoritarian rule. During the last two decades, Costa Rica’s political leaders have discussed the closure of the Directorate of Intelligence and National Security (DISNA)—the current national intelligence agency—considered a remnant of the Cold War and a permanent menace to national democratic values and the protection of human rights; yet the organization remains. In that context, this chapter discusses the development and transformation of Costa Rican intelligence services since 1948, the year of the last military conflict in the country. Specifically, it analyzes the challenges to intelligence reform amid democratic consolidation, and it further explores how the current intelligence culture engenders debates about its institutional permanence in the twenty-first century.2 It finds that Costa Rica lacks a strategic vision of the role and responsibilities of the intelligence service in Costa Rica’s democracy. As a result, democratic civilian control and oversight of the intelligence service in Costa Rica have been weak, marked by lack of understanding and indifference toward intelligence. As such, an uncertain future afflicts the intelligence services in Costa Rica.