Annual Societal Security Report 2015
SOURCE Project-Deliverable (3.5): Annual Societal Security Report 2
Published: December 2015
Authors (VICESSE): Reinhard Kreissl, Kilian Klinger, Roger von Laufenberg, Norbert Leonhardmair, Matthäus Vobruba, Florence Waschnig
Full Text: Available Here
Executive Summary:
In last year’s Deliverable of the SOURCE Annual Societal Security Report (D 3.4), the first in a five years series, we pointed out that security as an object of empirical and theoretical analysis is a complex concept, and is difficult to grasp. We presented evidence from a number of very different and heterogeneous data sources to demonstrate the wide array of security-related problems and topics we thought could be important for the SOURCE project. This piecemeal approach, more a bricolage than a comprehensive systematic analysis, was a response or reaction to two principal problems. One of these problems is of a prosaic nature: the budget available for this survey in the SOURCE project is limited and hence larger primary empirical studies of security at the European level are beyond limits for this Work Package. The second problem though is more serious and concerns theoretical integration: how can different definitions or interpretations of security be reconciled or synthesized? Is such an endeavour of synthesis desirable or is analytical grip and theoretical precision lost when moving up into thin air of high abstraction? Attempts to take the position of the all-seeing observer, capable of deciphering the signs of the present and covering the Gestalt of security in contemporary society as such come at a price. They tend to lose theoretical clarity and any supporting empirical evidence tends to become rather arbitrary. There is no easy way out of this dilemma.
We propose a solution that projects the problem onto the level of different disciplines and try to develop a sociologically informed understanding of security as the basis of the Societal Security Report. We will operate with a concept of security that has three analytical layers to capture the complexity of security discourses. For each of these three layers different types of empirical evidence will be presented. Each layer is linked to both of the others in multiple ways that have to be accounted for in an overarching framework. We termed these layers or domains
Security in mundane everyday world contexts and
Security in public media discourse,
Infrastructural systems security
Each of these layers or domains has a distinct temporal order and logic. Each focuses on specific aspects of “security”, taking a distinct perspective. We will elaborate on this model in more detail below.