International Security Management

Table of Contents

1. Frontmatter

2. Towards Sustainable Solutions in International Security Management—An Introduction

   Kate E. Horton, Gabriele Jacobs, Petra Saskia Bayerl, Ilona Suojanen

   Abstract

   In this introduction to the book, we consider key questions, such as; What is safety and security management? And what kinds of complex, grand challenges do organisations and stakeholders face in the security field? In the second part of the chapter, we shed light on three principles that characterise our approach throughout this book, namely the adoption of positive, solution-oriented and multi/inter-disciplinary approaches to security management. In addition, we provide an overview of the book’s structure and identify key cross-cutting themes related to globalisation, digitalisation and stakeholder relationships. As such, this chapter integrates the diverse perspectives in this book to consider how multiple stakeholders can work together to co-create positive safety.

3. Conceptual Perspectives on the International Safety and Security Landscape

   1. Frontmatter

   2. Security and Safety: An Integrative Perspective

      Bibi van den Berg, Pauline Hutten, Ruth Prins

      Abstract

      This chapter argues that modern-day global challenges invite us to rethink the meaning of the concepts of security and safety. While these two concepts have long been seen as rather distinct, both in academia and in practice there is a need to integrate the two. This chapter provides reasons why such integration is relevant and important, and provides insights into the consequences of the rise of global security and safety issues for the governance of these issues.

   3. Positive Safety

      Ilona Suojanen, Neil Thin

      Abstract

      Safety is normally understood as an ‘avoidance’ goal, the objective being to reduce risks and harms. Can it also be understood more positively, as an ‘approach’ goal? If so, what would that positive motivation entail, and what benefits might it bring? The world has never been safer, yet levels of stress and worry are increasing. Governments are spending heavily fighting crimes and hazards but in addition to that, we should focus on promoting aspects that make people feel safe. If the focus is on threats and crime, then the focus is on the absence of safety, not on the presence of feeling safe. And feeling unsafe is intrinsically bad even if that fear sometimes leads to sensible preventive action. Feeling safe, on the other hand, is intrinsically good. Sometimes it is instrumentally harmful to feel unrealistically safe. But, there is also some plausible evidence in support of the idea that we can make places safer by making people feel safer in them. We propose here a ‘Positive Safety Lens’ (PSL) as a complement to traditional ‘avoidance’ approaches to safety. We identify seven attributes of the PSL and discuss their potential benefits for safety research and safety promotion.

   4. Managing for Security

      Erik Hollnagel

      Abstract

      Although security and safety can both be traced back to antiquity, security was only recognised as a serious problem in the 1980s. At that time safety had already an accepted set of methods and solutions. The ‘new’ problem of security was therefore initially treated as a variant of safety and treated analogously, the predominant approaches being security by design, by prevention and by protection. Security, however, differs significantly from safety both because security breaches are intentional rather than haphazard, and because the secondary effects are more serious than the primary. This chapter considers these differences and concludes that security is not something that can be managed by itself or in isolation. The challenge is instead to manage for security so that a system or an organisation remains secure.

   5. Trends on Security, Safety and Criminal Justice in the Netherlands

      E. R. Muller

      Abstract

      In this article I focus on the trends in security, safety and criminal justice in the Netherlands which emerged from 23 volumes in Dutch on Police, Armed Forces, Safety and Security, Detention, Enforcement, Judiciary, Fire Brigades, Forensic Sciences, Terrorism, Crisis, Crime, Intelligence and Security Services, Crises in the Netherlands, Risk, Integrity, Mayor, Enforcement, Acute Medical Care, Conflict, Fraud, Violence and Veteran issues. In eight propositions I formulate my perspective on safety, security and criminal justice in general and more specifically in the Netherlands. The extent and intensity of safety and security and the way they are ensured are key indicators of the quality of a society.

4. How Do We Talk About Security? Security Narratives

   1. Frontmatter

   2. What Do People Talk About When They Talk About Experiencing Safety?

      Jelle Brands, Ilona Suojanen, Janne van Doorn

      Abstract

      Current discussions on the ways people experience safety in urban public spaces are often characterised by a negative view—the absence of unsafety—and rarely include positive sensations related to the safety experience itself. Some scholars have argued that this could be an artefact of more or less standardised methods used in the field. In fact, perceived safety and fear of crime are most often studied as disconnected from people’s everyday lives and practices, with little room provided for research participants to formulate what safety actually means to them in their circumstances. Although standardised approaches provide us with an intensity of the safety experience, all underlying ideas, meanings, sensations and perceptions are commonly forced into a single numerical rating. In order to gain insight into these aspects of the safety experience, we present the results of a bottom-up explorative approach in which participants were asked to freely describe what it means for them to feel safe. We detected three main themes: the absence of negative aspects, the presence of positive aspects and not having to think about safety. In our final section we reflect on the importance and usefulness of these findings for management, policymaking and academia.

   3. When Words Make Fences: A Look Into How Words and Media Narratives Contribute to the Creation of a Fortress Europe

      Katy Fallon

      Abstract

      This chapter investigates how the words journalists and media outlets use contribute to inaccurate or harmful narratives around migration; and how these narratives can construct narrative fences around assumed ideas of powerlessness. It also explores how every party involved in the migration field can engage in more ethical linguistic practices. As Europe faces the biggest migration of people since World War II it has often been referred to as a fortress in the methods it has taken to secure its borders. This has in turn been reflected in narratives around swarms and perceived threats to the so-called European way of life. The lexicon used by everyone from journalists to aid-workers and academics can influence the perception of a need to protect European boundaries. This chapter will examine how we can contribute to honest and fair narratives, which bring down the fences built to encourage ideas of us and them.

   4. Welcome to the “Shit Show”: Leveraging Emotions for Theory Building

      Christina Langenbusch

      Abstract

      This essay is a methodological reflection on conducting research in extreme contexts, the impact of this on researchers’ emotions, and its subsequent use in theory building. The essay draws on personal experience of conducting research on the Greek island of Lesbos in the aftermath of the European refugee crisis in 2017 and 2018. The essay adds to the literature on reflexivity, theory building and metaphors, spanning both the macro perspective of global grand challenges and the micro perspective of individuals’ emotional burdens. It proffers the metaphor of a “settled emergency” to describe a multi-faceted situation encountered in the field that can also be found in many organisational contexts in which an unbearable situation is perpetuated by informal dynamics.

   5. Looking at Safety and Security Issues in Different Cultures

      Fernando Lanzer

      Abstract

      A useful way of analysing how safety and security issues are handled across different cultures is offered by looking at them through the prism of Huib Wursten’s Mental Images (Wursten and Lanzer in The EU: The third great European cultural contribution to the world. Academia, 2013), a framework that takes Hofstede’s four classic value-dimensions (Hofstede et al. in Cultures and organizations. McGraw-Hill Education, New York City, US, 2010; Hofstede in Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. SAGE Publications, Thousand Oaks, Canada, 2003) and combines them into six different styles of culture. In addition to that, Japan offers a seventh and different style of culture (Wursten in Mental images of culture: A perspective to understand misunderstandings in politics, business, religion and… to make some sense of the challenges in today’s confusing world. Academia, 2017). In each of these styles, culture influences (a) how safety and security issues are considered; (b) how they are handled in terms of (i) prevention, (ii) making corrections and (iii) taking measures to avoid repetition in the future and (c) how cross-border collaboration may occur to increase effectiveness. Institutions must increase their awareness of how culture influences safety and security issues. Special attention is required to enhance international collaboration efforts, which can have frustrating results when cultural differences are not taken into account. Institutions that operate in different geographies and employ multinational teams need to become aware of how different national cultures impact on their ways of working, so that they may become more effective and efficient in each operating environment.

   6. Common Security Culture: Myth or Reality? Security Co-creation from the Risk Management Perspective: An Essay Based on Observation, Critical Thinking and a Strong Belief in a Better Future

      Magda Stepanyan

      Abstract

      Building common capacities and capabilities for security depends largely on the existence of a common or shared security culture. The question is if a common and shared security culture is possible or if it is a phantom of our imagination. Security culture implies that there is a shared set of values and behavioural norms within the wider society on how to approach security. In our today’s world, societies are not unipolar, they have multipolar centres of opinions, values and norms. In this article, I explore security culture from the risk management perspective and argue that through exploring and understanding security risks we, collectively, create the foundation for building societal resilience in a multipolar community. This chapter provides some practical recommendations towards building common security culture through the prism of risk management. It proposes a novel concept of ‘risk footprint’ as a mechanism to build effective and functional safety and security risk assessment and risk governance mechanisms.

   7. Artist’s Reflections: The Governance of Safety and Security as a Performance

      Rob Ruts

      Abstract

      The management of safety and security is a process with nooks and crannies. It goes far beyond what is academically deemed irrefutable. The fact-based response to calamities is just one piece of the puzzle. Dealing with what might be and cannot yet be factualised is another. Facts collide with concerns. The proposition here is that facts, concerns as well as their collision need to be incorporated in the management of safety and security. Civic engagement in dealing with the risks associated with the urban condition then is not an option but a vital asset. This calls for the exploration of new domains. Consider art. The question is how art—both as end products and as the process of making them—informs us about the management of safety and security as a collective creative process. When dealing with matters of concern, the truth is not in facts but in the iconic representations of daily life challenges. Diving into that truth opens up a complementary array of tools that are worth ‘artfully’ experimenting with. To illustrate practice in which that happens, a neighbourhood in a Dutch city is introduced. Also, a concise description of the tools used is given.