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"Creating networks” – the new effectiveness myth for "internal security”, by Thomas Feltes, Peter Stegmaier

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A crisis of security and knowledge

Behind this trend towards the organisation of networks stands the assumption that the conventional bureaucracy of security no longer represents an adequate or sufficient response to the network of organisational structures in which worldwide organised crime cooperates and merges in the form of international terrorism and organised criminality (e.g. "networks of professionally organised perpetrators”, "networks of organised economic crime”[1]) nor even to the (slightly less dramatic) way in which the football hooligan scene is organised. It is said that there are therefore definitely also reasons for fighting the causes of international terrorism at the local level.[2]

In what John Kenneth Galbraith has called "the age of uncertainty” and what Ulrich Beck calls "the world risk society,” the field of "internal security” is also increasingly being extended beyond its usual limits.[3] There are no longer any clearly calculable margins of suspicion, prevention, intervention, repression, risk or danger. The bases of knowledge in this field are subject to numerous processes of definition, discovery and action.[4] What counts as knowledge and lack of knowledge, for instance when describing a certain situation, taking a decision or solving a problem, is fought over just as much as are the associated political and practical consequences and previously the causes. Attacks which no one foresaw by groups or individuals (like the "suitcase bombers”) whom no one knew beforehand are not to be seen as a risk (which can be evaluated, and on the basis of which one can make a decision) but instead as a danger (which precisely cannot be evaluated).

In this situation, the modern myth that the nation-state is in control crumbles even for "internal security”. At the same time, even those institutions which are supposed to guarantee security are being restructured using "new management models” which promise to produce ever greater efficiency and effectiveness, while at the same time acting on the basis that the ability to control social processes is ever more limited. The daily contradiction is striking between, on the one hand, the lack of knowledge and the unpredictability of things, and, on the other, the desire and need to manage and organise. However, this does not mean that the state is unable to act, since it has considerable institutional ability to adapt, the ability to use new tax instruments, and the possibility to force people to cooperate.

With this diagnosis we can say straight away not only that it is becoming ever more difficult to obtain information about ever more complex social relationships, but also that the possibilities for having certain knowledge at one's disposal are decreasing. As a result, unclear situations are arising, both in professional practice and also in politics, on which it is impossible or difficult to decide. Domestic and security policy is not immune from this crisis of knowledge. Thus August Hanning, President of the Federal Information Service, has emphasised that, "The potential threats today and in the future are enormously numerous and complex.” He believes that these threats can be faced only if "integrated and inter-disciplinary” working patterns satisfy "the new information requirements” and if national and international cooperation is improved. He has said that "global security policy thinking” was essential.[5]

It is clear, then, that the problem and the manner in which it is approached – in other words, the organisation of knowledge and the organisation of security actors – are connected. In classical categories – state versus private, internal versus external security, organised crime versus terrorism, political management versus the inability or limited ability to manage events, large political versus sporting events, and so on – phenomena which can no longer be grasped demand both new strategies for knowledge and other strategies for organising action. These are the two aspects of the complexity of security tasks.

The knowledge base in the field of "internal security” is subject to numerous processes of definition and negotiation. What counts as knowledge and what counts as lack of knowledge – for instance in police descriptions of a situation, in decisions and in problem-solving – is just as controversial as are the political consequences and causes which go with it.[6]

It is not just the conditions and forms of expression with which the conceptual construct "security” is given meaning and put into practice, which change, but also the division of labour, the cognitive categories and the methods by which security is produced and maintained. There are three qualitative dimensions to this: first, the elementary need for self-certainty and security with respect to the future behaviour of strangers; second, society's right to enough satisfactory forms of behaviour; third, trust in the meaning and purpose of the social processes by which these models of behaviour are allowed, controlled and stabilised.[7] Further development will show in what way these different security institutions transpose, complement or curtail these dimensions when they cooperate.

Wolfgang Bonss has for a while now recommended a change in perspective both for security research and for security policy. Since the concept of cumulative and absolutely rational security is no longer viable, it can no longer be assumed that the failure to achieve the ideals of absolute rationality and total security can be explained by a lack of time or money, or by some other factor. Instead, one should operate on the basis that these things are fundamentally unattainable. He says that it is important to examine how (the expectation of) security is produced above and beyond ideals about absolute rationality and information, and in particular what curtailment strategies and other procedures can be made viable beyond these absolute ideals.[8]

Security in times of a crisis in security and secure knowledge is a challenge which must be met with greater individual creativity than before. It is a task to which one must stick without being sure that one will be able to take any absolute guarantees with one on the way. The paradox in the situation is that both institutions and individual members of society will have to rely on each other more strongly. At the same time, they will have to cooperate flexibly with others on the basis of their autonomy (which they gain back through reduced protection) and therefore to continue to change themselves.

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