Dr. Eleni Braat is Associate Professor in Political History at Utrecht University. She specializes in the history of intelligence and state secrecy from political, socio-cultural, and methodological perspectives. Politically, her work examines political debate, representations of intelligence, political legitimacy, and the legacy of authoritarianism. From a socio-cultural angle, she studies the organisational culture of intelligence services, including gender dynamics, and how secrecy shapes their interaction with the ‘outside world’. Methodologically, she focuses on research methods in intelligence history. These include access to and use of oral history and archival sources, as well as the politics of doing research on intelligence. 

Eleni Braat obtained her Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy (2008), and she has been trained at the University of Amsterdam, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has been the official historian of the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD). Eleni Braat is also a member of the University Council at Utrecht University (2023-2027), which promotes the interests of employees and students with the executive board of the university. 

Currently, Eleni Braat is engaged in the research project Politics of state secrecy. The long shadow of authoritarianism on the legitimacy of state secrecy, 1945-2015, funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO (2020-2027). As part of this project, she was a visiting scholar at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2022, which led to ongoing research on Greek intelligence abd democratization. She is also collaborating with Ben de Jong (retired, University of Amsterdam) on a book project exploring research methods in intelligence history.

Eleni Braat participates in the Network of Mediterranean Studies of Utrecht University, and in the Netherlands Intelligence Studies Association.      

Keywords: 

Intelligence (espionage), organisational culture (secrecy, gender), legitimacy, accountability, democratization, memory, oral history.