Societal safety in a new era

How society should best be organised to protect individuals and shared values is an issue which cuts across both science and politics – and one full of major dilemmas.

After the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 1990s, the world appeared from a Norwegian perspective to be a fairly peaceful place. 
Defence preparations were downgraded in relation to civil preparedness, and Norway rethought “old-style” security and safety work from the Cold War era. 

Society nevertheless remained vulnerable, as shown by a number of incidents like as the New Year hurricane which struck western Norway in 1992 and the big east Norwegian floods in 1995. 

Combined with ever-growing technological complexity, such events made it clear that the country was inadequately organised to cope with accidents and disasters. More needed to be learnt about meeting innate threats to civil society.  

Vulnerability 

The concept of societal safety made its full entry to the public discourse through the findings of the vulnerability commission, published as Norwegian Official Reports (NOU) 2000:24. 

Chaired by former prime minister Kåre Willoch, this study addressed ways of strengthening society’s safety and emergency preparedness. 

“Societal safety was originally a political term which needed to be given scientific content,” comments Professor Ole Andreas Hegland Engen in the department of safety, economics and planning at the University of Stavanger (UiS). 

“Initially, it addressed the way safety and emergency preparedness should be organised when attention was concentrated on society’s innate threats rather than state security. 

“This meant achieving a more societal perspective on the risks faced – natural disasters, the climate and the environment – with the technological dimension at centre stage.” 

Engen notes that people had talked about total preparedness and such issues earlier, but that “societal safety” raised this discussion to a more administrative level. 

A 2001 White Paper following the vulnerability commission’s report defined the term as “society’s ability to maintain important social functions and protect the life, health and basic needs of citizens under different types of stresses”. 

Since then, this definition of the concept and its content have been adjusted and expanded in several stages under the impact of incidents such accidents, disasters and attacks. 

Societal security has thereby been extended to include such aspects as security and terrorism – in other words, society’s ability to protect itself against deliberate malicious assaults. 

At the same time, it now encompasses the vulnerabilities created by technology, critical infrastructure and changes to climate and the environment. 

The latest definition of the term is to be found in a White Paper on societal safety in an uncertain world, which was presented to the Storting (parliament) in 2020. 

This says the concept is about: “society’s ability to protect itself against and deal with incidents which threaten fundamental values and functions, and put life and health at risk. Such incidents can be triggered by natural forces, by technical or human errors, or by deliberate acts.” 

Discipline 

The UiS has been a trendsetter in developing societal safety as an academic discipline, establishing study programmes from an early stage and contributing to extensive learning. 

“When this subject was established in the early 2000s, it was natural to draw on developments in industrial safety,” Engen says. 

“That related primarily to the petroleum industry, with its knowledge of managing risk and technical safety, and not least the experience gained from the Norwegian regulatory model – which the PSA, of course, forms part of. 

“This model differs from approaches taken in many other countries, including its emphasis on managing safety in the context of industrial democracy. Collaboration between employers and employees and mutual trust are important dimensions here.” 

This way of thinking has undoubtedly affected societal safety in Norway, Engen says, with performance-based regulations, internal control, the individual responsibility of companies and the risk management principles as important elements. 

“The question then, of course, is whether we can call this a separate discipline at all,” he points out. “Risk has long been a subject, with its own methods and theoretical basis, but societal safety still has a multidisciplinary character. 

“That includes a dose of political science, a dash of sociology and a dollop of organisation theory. But we’re working to weld these together.” 

Balanced 

The benefits of a high level of security and good emergency preparedness always needs to be balanced against other advantages and values. 

In a 2021 book about perspectives on societal safety, Engen and his co-authors from the UiS highlight a number of dilemmas, paradoxes and challenges which can arise when seeking to make society safer. 

These need to be given greater attention, they believe, with the balance between freedom and security as perhaps the most important of many issues. 

“When the state takes responsibility for safeguarding citizens, it’s usually at the expense of personal freedoms,” Engen notes, and says some of these are dropped to give people security. 

“The state organises society in such a way that the freedoms and rights of its inhabitants are coordinated, restricted and managed.” 

This is a classic discussion, he says, which also goes right to the heart of current problems related to security and protection against deliberate attacks. 

“Every time we enter a period where security and security issues are put on the agenda, that discussion re-emerges to a greater or lesser extent and in differing contexts. 

“Whenever a threat to society arises, the government will face the challenge that measures which might be needed to protect people don’t necessarily accord with the democratic values we like to expound. 

“It’s clear that personal privacy, surveillance, possible controls on our online activities, and data storage – in other words, all the issues we discuss in connection with societal safety – will always be associated with such dilemmas.” 

Introducing Norway’s Security Act and identifying objects worth safeguarding confront Norwegians with this type of problem – where the measures adopted can affect freedom of action. 

Expanding 

“That brings us to what’s often called ‘securitisation’,” says Engen. “In other words, the authorities use security as an argument for extending their powers or passing laws.”

Value-laden terms such as “societal safety”, “security” and “safeguarding” both are or can be deployed politically to achieve specific goals, he notes. 

“In political discussion, security- and value-related aspects may be weighty arguments for pushing other considerations aside. But actions always have consequences, and securitisation presents us with dilemmas. You can’t get away from that.” 

Whenever a threat to society arises, the government will face the challenge that measures which might be needed to protect people don’t necessarily accord with the democratic values we like to expound. 

Integrated 

Societal safety encompasses both “safety” and “security”. Although conflicts exist between these two areas, Engen believes it is important to think and work with them in an integrated way. 

While safety is about preventing mishaps and accidents which occur in legal activities, security deals with foiling deliberate attacks. 

“A clear conflict between security and safety is presented by the transparency principle,” Engen says. “We can’t talk openly about the one in the same way we can with the other. The information flow has to be different. 

“And the other key dimension is that when we protect ourselves in a security context, we’re safeguarding against a potentially willed and malicious action.” 

By contrast, he observes, the issue in the safety area is to be organised in the best possible way to reduce risk. But interfaces do exist, of course. 

“Safety can influence security. If the safety systems aren’t good enough, the way can be opened to malicious activity. So safety and security personnel must collaborate. 

“These two areas traditionally involve different environments, professional traditions, risk thinking, legal frameworks and logics. But they must be harmonised to function optimally.” 

In political discussion, security- and value-related aspects may be weighty arguments for pushing other considerations aside. But actions always have consequences, and securitisation presents us with dilemmas. You can’t get away from that.

Challenge 

More extensive security measures also challenge the collaboration between employers, unions and government which has traditionally been very important in Norway’s industrial relations, Engen notes. 

“What happens to that partnership when unions, for example, are no longer consulted over new security laws because the discussions involved are confidential? Some very fundamental traditions are being challenged here.” 

Changed 

Societal safety was developed at a fairly peaceful time from Norway’s viewpoint. That has now changed. Engen believes the subject is bound to find its place in a discussion which is inevitable in Norwegian society, where security issues will be a stronger element. 

“We now face a new type of threat in the light of Putin’s Russia and what might follow,” he says. “We also face hybrid technological threats, and a climate crisis which will escalate. 

“Climate, digitalisation and a new security policy position are aspects which societal safety must take seriously in a good and constructive way. 

“Development of this discipline must also be clarified in relation to issues of state security – in other words, its operational, military and territorial components. 

“How are we going to look after overall emergency preparedness while simultaneously maintaining our defence capability? That question actually unites state security with societal safety.” 
 
Sources: Engen et al (2021). Perspektiver på samfunnssikkerhet (2nd edn), Oslo, Cappelen Damm Akademisk. 

Read more articles about security: