Abstract
Current research of the Norwegian samfunnssikkerhet concept appears to be lacking, with few scientific publications advancing the understanding of the concept. This weakness is addressed through the paper’s empirical exploration of challenges in the work on samfunnssikkerhet (Paper aim #1), where the resulting insight informs an epistemological understanding of the concept of samfunnssikkerhet (Paper aim #2). The paper identifies four challenges in the work on samfunnssikkerhet, which suggest that samfunnssikkerhet is about mobilizing against both known and unknown threats through broad and border-crossing cooperation and about flexible methods and design approaches. It is concluded that the paper’s empirical exploration of the samfunnssikkerhet concept contributes to a clarification and overall empirical revitalization of the concept. A recommendation to safety and security researchers is to further develop the empirical understanding of the samfunnssikkerhet concept, including through validation of the challenges identified in this paper and continuous mapping of additional and future challenges. This can give the samfunnssikkerhet concept, including its relation to concepts such as resilience, risk and societal security, a clearer meaning and consequently a stronger unifying role in efforts to prevent and manage today’s dynamic threats both within and outside Norway.
Highlights
This paper explores the Norwegian concept of samfunnssikkerhet, which has often been translated as societal safety in English literature, albeit with a meaning that overlaps the concept of societal security
Identification of Challenges 3 and 4: In summary, the results reveal two additional challenges in the work on samfunnssikkerhet: Methods in the work on samfunnssikkerhet must be adapted to the individual organization and both known and unknown threats (Challenge 3); designing samfunnssikkerhet requires broad and flexible approaches in the form of methods that take into account both known and unknown threats, limitations of the individual method and outcome, involvement of all relevant parties, and testing and validation of the outcome of methods and analyses (Challenge 4)
The introduction portrayed today’s research into the concept of samfunnssikkerhet as lacking, with few scientific publications providing insight into what the concept is about. This weakness was addressed through the paper’s empirical exploration of challenges in the work on samfunnssikkerhet (Paper aim #1), where the resulting insight informed an epistemological understanding of the samfunnssikkerhet concept (Paper aim #2)
Summary
This paper explores the Norwegian concept of samfunnssikkerhet, which has often been translated as societal safety in English literature, albeit with a meaning that overlaps the concept of societal security. The samfunnssikkerhet or societal safety concept is currently used in a broad sense that considers safety and security against challenges ranging from limited natural occurring events to threats against the nation’s independence or existence [1] This author’s systematic literature review of existing security research reveals 16 scientific publications that address how the Norwegian samfunnssikkerhet or societal safety concept can be understood [2], of which only a few [3,4,5,6,7,8] represent marked developments in terms of advancing the understanding of the concept rather than just referring to it or discussing it briefly. This author’s literature review reveals some challenges in the work on samfunnssikkerhet.
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