Home / Press review / Archive / Magazine / Politics / Counter Terrorism / Article

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

« back . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . next »

The potential and limits of security networks

To observe the Organisation for Internal Security in the light of these networks is to find comparisons with the most recent organisational, policy and technical research, especially where it is a matter of so-called "enterprise networks” and "innovation networks”. In economic life, developed forms of organisation ("the new taxation model,” "outsourcing” and so on) are regularly proposed and implemented as suitably reform paths for public administration.

In the economy, the creation of networks counts as a tried and tested strategy for overcoming the bottlenecks and shortages of resources in individual organisations, and for facilitating access to external knowledge.[1] New fields of action can thereby be opened up, and advantages of scale and specialisation can be realised for the whole association. The basic uncertainty of processes based on a complex future, about which only limited predictions can be made, is said to be reduced for the "partners” involved and made more calculable. Flexibility and openness in cooperation and communication would have to be guaranteed – a difficult challenge for bureaucratic organisations, whether private companies or state authorities.

Such networks can be defined as a form of coordination of specific activities durably linking together institutions and organisations which are formally independent but which in practice are more or less dependent, by means of complex and mutual relatively stable relations which are more cooperative than competitive.[2] They serve, first, as organisational means by which to rationalise the whole chain of action, and by which to use new potentials for cost reduction and increased achievement; second, for the management of ever faster and evident changes, and of the shortening of innovation times. Third, the creation of networks aims to extend the activities of the actors involved.[3]

In spite of this general hype about networks, it cannot be said that in the economy there is fundamentally a positive orientation towards them. Cooperation in the form of networks by no means obtains everywhere between firms or departments. The meaning and functionality of non-cooperative forms of action is often more highly valued. One can find all over the place highly differentiated hybrid forms of organisation and management which work in their own contexts. Cooperation can be strategic, partnership-based, market-oriented, regional, polycentric, oriented towards innovation or distribution, general or based on specific projects, or a mixture of any of these. Above all, when it is a matter of illegal or partly legal activities, or activities in a grey area (for instance, the VW-Hartz affair, the corruption at Siemens, or the Price Fixing Affair) it is above all small, informal and internally dependent "networks” which tend to be created.

Often there is also an instrumental component, according to which a network arrangement does not represent an end in itself, but something which is set up temporarily for the purpose of achieving a restructuring goal - to break up existing structures and then to stabilise them in a new way. The motives and criteria for success of the actors involved can also diverge considerably, the evolved cultures and technologies of the participants can turn out to be incompatible, and mutual trust can sometimes grow too slowly. The tension between autonomy and independence in a network has to be overcome.[4]

Obviously there is a need to verify to what extent in the security field it is actually a question of network structures in specific cases, or whether they are other forms of connection. The question is also to what extent the network tendencies and forms observed in industry and the economy can be transposed and established for "internal security” as well. There must first be a fundamental comparison between the creation of networks and network-based action in the state and the economy, since the framework conditions, the associated phenomena, the manner of action, and the institutional structures have grown up differently in each field. It would be fascinating to have clarity on the issue of whether the discourse about "creating networks” proposes networks on the quiet, so to speak, only where they empirically do not exist or where they are incapable of acting.

There is therefore a clear need for social science research on institutions, action and knowledge in the area of "internal security”. In the future, it will be a matter of analysing and testing the rhetoric about networks in security policy as a formula for self-description, and seeing what real structural effects and day-to-day forms of practice appear.

« back . 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . next »

Further articles on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Global, » Europe
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » International Relations, » EU Policy, » Global, » Europe