The Use of the Graph Theory to Investigate the Role of the Economic Intelligence for the National Security
Abstract
The present article provides a complete and comprehensive analysis of the significance of the Economic Intelligence as an instrument to pursue the national interest and to guarantee the national security. The Wesfalian approach and its social-economic connotation to interpretation of the national interest have been analyzed. The economic aspect of national interest has been highlighted, as well as its gaining the momentum in the definition of national security has been underlined. For that to be done, by using the mathematical approach deriving from the graph theory, three different innovative models are presented. Those models are based on dissimilar economic levels of abstraction analysis, which represent a scientific logic description of the different Economic Intelligence approaches offered by the academic literature on the basis of the reference object. At a first level of abstraction analysis the economic intelligence has been simply defined as the set of information of a purely economic nature. It has been underlined that the second level of abstraction instead requires the definition of more fixed points, able to represent the different components of a new dynamic conceptual scheme aimed to extrapolate a more articulated representation of the Economic Intelligence concept. In the specific, according to the more complex and articulated third level of abstraction analysis, the Economic Intelligence could be described as a system (subject to geometrical variance) of entities, structures, scientific methods and instruments of analysis interconnected by means a common shared language, aimed to manage flows of data and diversified information, in order to generate the best possible understanding of the object of analysis, useful for supporting policies and decisions. It has been proved that shared information circulating within the system has an informative content, and therefore a value, potentially superior to the same information when it is collected and analyzed. The implications for it have a double important practical impact, as they demonstrate the generation of synergies to the benefit of the whole system as well as an absence of determination of evolution of information, but only estimation with a probabilistic approach.
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