Credibility Without Disclosure: Secrecy and Linguistic Strategy in UK Espionage and Covert Action Accusations

Dr Thomas Eason

Dr Nicci MacLeod

Governments make public accusations of espionage, sabotage, and covert action by other states, but official secrecy and the need to protect sources and methods mean they must frequently do so without being able to disclose the intelligence purportedly underpinning these claims. In the UK, high-profile cases such as the Litvinenko and Skripal poisonings and allegations of Chinese espionage in Parliament demonstrate that national security accusations can carry major political and diplomatic consequences while the evidential basis remains largely classified. This creates a distinctive challenge: how do states construct credible accusations, persuade domestic and international audiences, and defend their claims against scrutiny and denial when they cannot fully disclose the evidence? This interdisciplinary PhD will investigate how UK authorities make and sustain credible public accusations under conditions of evidential secrecy. While official secrecy is often treated in Politics and International Relations scholarship as a political shield that protects governments from scrutiny, this project will analyse official secrecy as a constraining force on government, restricting what can be shown publicly, shaping disclosure trade-offs, and compelling authorities to rely on discursive and linguistic strategies to establish credibility and responsibility.

The project will therefore sit at the intersection of security and intelligence studies and forensic linguistics, and the successful applicant will be based in both the Department for Society and Politics and the world-leading Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics. The PhD will adopt a comparative, multi-case research design focusing on UK-based cases from the post–Cold War period to the present. Exact cases can be selected by the successful candidate, but indicative examples include the Litvinenko and Skripal poisonings and the Chinese ‘spies in Parliament’ case. For each case, the project will examine how accusations are made, how they are received and scrutinised by Parliament and the media, and how officials respond to follow-up questioning and denials from the accused. Methodologically, the project will combine corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis with a small number of elite interviews. A structured corpus will be built from publicly available sources, including government press releases and speeches, parliamentary debates (Hansard), official reports, and media interviews and coverage.

This will enable systematic quantitative and qualitative analysis of how credibility is constructed through language, including evidential claims, certainty and hedging, appeals to authority, and narrative framing. Elite interviews with former ministers and officials will be conducted to provide an insider perspective on disclosure decisions, institutional coordination, and how secrecy constraints shaped what could be said publicly. The project will contribute to academic debates on secrecy, attribution, and political communication by developing a grounded account of “credibility without disclosure”: how governments seek to stabilise accusations and maintain persuasive authority when key evidence cannot be publicly shown. It will also have wider relevance for policymakers and media by improving understanding of how national security claims are communicated and contested in democratic societies.

International applicants are welcome to apply for this position.

This project covers all tuition fees and includes an annual stipend.

Please note that the successful candidate will be responsible for any costs relating to moving to Birmingham and/or visiting the Aston campus. International students must meet the financial requirements for the visa, flights, and NHS Surcharge. Applicants should be confident that they can meet these costs before applying.

Further information can be found by viewing our Financial Requirements page.

The successful applicant should hold, or expect to achieve:

A First or Upper Second Class Honours undergraduate degree, and a Masters degree with Merit or Distinction, both in relevant subjects.

Qualifications from overseas institutions will be considered, but performance must be equivalent to that described above, and the University reserves the right to ascertain this equivalence according to its own criteria.

Desirable / Essential Skills or Experience

The successful candidate must have:

Experience with critical discourse analysis and corpus-assisted discourse analysis

An understanding of research on secret intelligence, covert action, and government communication

Desirable characteristics

It is desirable for the successful candidate to have:

Familiarity with forensic linguistics

Experience with both qualitative and quantitative approaches to research on discourse and linguistics

Experience engaging with research on secret intelligence, covert action, and government communication

We can only consider applications that are complete and have all supporting documents. Applications that do not provide all the relevant documents will be automatically rejected. Your application must include:

1. English language copies of the transcripts and certificates for all your higher education degrees, including any Bachelor degrees.
2. A Research Statement detailing your understanding of the research area, how you would approach the project, and a brief review of relevant literature. Be sure to use the title of the research project you are applying for. There is no set format or word count.
3. A personal statement which outlines any further information which you think is relevant to your application, such as your personal suitability for research, career aspirations, possible future research interests, and further description of relevant employment experience.
4. A Curriculum Vitae (Resume) which details your education and work history.
5. Two academic referees who can discuss your suitability for independent research. References must be on headed paper, signed and dated no more than 2 years old. At least one reference should be from your most recent University. You can submit your references at a later date if necessary.
6. Evidence that you meet the English Language requirements. If you do not currently meet the language requirements, you can submit this at a later stage.
7.  A copy of your passport. Where relevant, include evidence of settled or pre-settled status.

For enquiries about this project, contact Dr Thomas Eason.

This position will be based on the Aston Campus in Birmingham, UK. The successful candidate will need to be located within a reasonable distance of the campus, and will be expected to visit in person regularly.

Interviews will be conducted online via Microsoft Teams. If you are shortlisted, you will be contacted directly with details of the interview.

Apply for this position

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If you require further information about the application process, please contact the Postgraduate Admissions team.