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No state can do it alone - Private sector involvement in the civil security provision in Europe 1 Vera-Karin Brazova Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences [email protected] DRAFT VERSION. PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSION. COMMENTS ARE WELCOME. 1 The paper was supported by the Specific Research Grant of the Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences Nr. 260 232 1 ABSTRACT Protecting society from devastating disasters is a fundamental function of the modern state. In this respect, the concept of resilience to disasters (and the application thereof) has enjoyed a steep rise in popularity in the civil security policymaking and crisis management over the last years. Most importantly, it stresses the need for a broad involvement of stakeholders in the prevention, mitigation and response efforts. In this respect, however, the European countries differ significantly. While in some countries (such as e.g. the Netherlands), the civil security provision is highly privatized, in other countries the opposite is the case and most of the civil security-related activities rest upon the state. Similarly, the importance of civic organizations' involvement differs significantly. It is the aim of this paper to shed more light on these differences, framing the findings within the security governance approach (Krahmann 2003). Building on the governance framework, the paper identifies and analyzes different dimensions of civil security governance in the European countries. Firstly, the role of the societal engagement, non-profit organizations and profit-oriented organizations in the civil security provision is examined, followed by other dimensions as identified in the literature on resilience and security and disaster management. These concern decentralization of civil security provision, international engagement and the use of the military in civil security operations. Particular attention is paid to the post-communist new member states of the EU. It is examined whether these represent a distinctive group with specific patterns of (rather low) private involvement in the civil security provision or whether more universal patterns apply. To achieve this, a hierarchical cluster analysis is conducted, based on the data gathered within a large-scale collaborative research project (European Commission's FP7 project ANVIL). The paper seeks to answer the following research questions: How does the civil security governance vary in the European countries? And are there any patterns identifiable among these variations? 2 1. INTRODUCTION In the field of security, there has been a clear trend in most societies of citizens expecting good governance, yet with less government. With an increasing pressure on effectiveness, public service functions, including some fields of security, have been increasingly placed in private hands and outsourced through contracting. While public expectations of government performance in ensuring civil security remain high even in the face of a widening spectrum of threats, the resources available to the public authorities are limited (Hamilton et al. 2005). At the operative level, the consequences thereof can be seen in the changing structures of the national civil security systems, such as e.g. the deployment of the military to deal with internal security issues like natural disasters. Concurrently, the geographical scope has broadened to include not only the nation state but also whole regions in the case of transboundary threats or even the world as a whole, as the term "global security" suggests (Daase, 2010: 30-32). Institutional plurality and mixed deliveries of public goods have generally started to gain on importance and to be viewed as an effective strategy enhancing governance capacities (Hefetz et al. 2014, Huitema et al. 2009). While there is a growing acceptance of "governance" based on the "belief that the focus of administrative practice is shifting from hierarchical government toward greater reliance on horizontal, hybridized, and associational forms of governance" (Hill, Lynn 2005: 1), implying a larger inclusion of different atakeholders, the empirical evidence thereof - as it is argued by Hill and Lynn (ibid.) - is limited. So far, the analyses of (civil) security governance have concentrated at the international (EU) level (Krahmann 2003; Kirchner 2006) or - on the contrary - at very narrow and specific topics, such as citizen's involvement in flood risk management through information and communication technologies (Wehn et al. 2015). A comprehensive comparative is lacking so far in the civil security realm. The goal of this article is thus to attempt an empirical explorative analysis regarding governance in the field of civil security. The term civil security refers especially to extraordinary events, including vulnerability reduction, response and recovery measures (Dory 2003). Despite a considerable degree of convergence among the European countries in this area (Hamilton et al. 2005) - especially due to EU Directives, such as the so-called Floods Directive 2 or the Directive on Critical Infrastructures 3, significant differences exist (Lethbridge 2007). Apart from differences in the nature of the prevalent crises and in geographical conditions, cultural underpinnings of disaster preparedness and response are reported to be of a significant importance as well (Gopalakrishnan, Okada 2007). While many comparative studies conducted in this field have typically focused on two countries or regions only (see e.g. Lai 2012; Saban 2013), the aim here is to involve more states into the analysis and thus to discuss patterns of similarities and differences in their civil security governance systems. In particular, the research questions are: How does the civil security governance vary in the European countries? And are there any patterns identifiable among these variations? To 2 2007/60/EC 3 2008/114/EC 3 answer these questions, the paper builds on the data collected within the EU 7th framework project ANVIL ("Analysis of Civil Security Systems in Europe") within which data on civil protection and disaster management systems in 22 European countries were collected. In the first part, general features of civil security governance are outlined. Followingly, based on the literature review, key dimensions of civil security governance are identified and discussed for the European states, based on qualitative analysis of the ANVIL country reports. In the next section, cluster analysis is conducted, based on the previously identified dimensions, using the ANVIL coded datasheets. Finally, results are discussed in the concluding part. 2. CIVIL SECURITY GOVERNANCE The use of the term "governance" varies with respect to the issues covered and levels of analysis applied. In the field of security studies, the concept of "security governance" (Krahmann 2003) has emerged, stressing the shift from centralized security structures towards more fragmented and complex ones. The core of the concept of security governance refers to the fragmentation of authority and resources in security policymaking and implementation among different governmental and non-governmental stakeholders, while the transnational and international relations are increasingly regulated in particular areas (Krahmann 2003b). Security governance is seen as a helpful framework for studying the interactions between a diverse number of actors (Kirchner 2006), yet governance in civil security has not been fully conceptualized as yet. A very emerging - and somewhat similar - concept is here the one of disaster governance (Tierney 2012), however it is still remaining quite fuzzy to grasp and more research on this topic is needed (ibid.). Thus, a "collateral" aim of this paper is to provide such conceptualization - identifying dimensions alongside which the civil security governance could be studied and compared among different countries. From an analytical perspective, based on the review of the literature on security governance, the following aspects are of utmost importance: Firstly, the incentive to cooperate and to engage the private sector in security matters often stems from the growing demands on the provision of security on the one hand; and from the limited resources available for the security provision on the other hand (ibid.). Secondly, according to Krahmann (ibid.), security governance is fragmented among governmental and non-governmental actors. At the same time, some endeavors are marked by a "disjuncture between the enthusiasm (...) and the lack of interest" concerning bureaucratic elites on the one hand and the wider communities on the other hand (Breslin, Higgott, 2000: 345). According to some scholars, "citizens in the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (...) participate less in voluntary organizations than their Western counterparts" (Uslaner 2004: 81; see also Petrova, Tarrow 2007; Cottey et al. 2002). This feature, when identified, is often linked with the issue of trust, in line with Putnam's (1993) concept of civic community (ibid.: 82). Yet, as this is commonly ascribed to the developing social capital of these societies (ibid.: 83), the differences might not be as large now as in 2000s. A working hypothesis could thus stand that the civic sector involvement is larger in "western" European countries with longer democratic tradition. 4 Although concerns about privatization have been risen especially in the field of military security with respect to the private military companies (Scahill,