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

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Balance and outlook

The idea of a "network” and a "net” is commonly associated both with productive innovation (in the economy) and also with security (in social thought and when security). This perception must be completed by a "negative” dimension: that of the threatening, criminal, terrorist network. At the same time, the quite separate perception that only individuals are exposed to the neo-liberal trend of de-socialisation – when taken out of the security of state protection – could turn out to be an illusion.

Institutions may find that their potential as active agents of their own fate is visibly emphasised, and that they are expected to show a quasi entrepreneurial initiative and a market-oriented preparedness for cooperation. State security institutions and their political masters will have to live with this. It is not always clear whether the consequences of the relative liberalisation and networking of institutions is completely intentional.

With the concept of transinstitutional policing we have denoted a trend towards a relatively durable, coordinated cooperation which spans various institutions, prevention and repression, the executive and the legislature, the state the economy and even civil society. Its goal is to achieve and preserve "security”.

Depending on how this cooperation is organised and operated, the goal can no longer be called "internal security” in the conventional sense. It must have other criteria. It can be a matter of influencing the "feeling of security” of individual social groups, of deterrence through huge security measures (as at the World Cup), or of the political, military and security services shifting the balance of civil liberties and "internal security” (as by the so-called Complementary Law on the Fight against Terrorism). Changing the criteria can also mean dealing with the new fear of danger in such a way that the state's requirement for security is reduced.[1]

Both economic and also social-diagnostic arguments are adduced to legitimise the reorganisation of "security” along the lines of networks: efficiency and effectiveness, the risk society and the dissolution of borders. Creating networks means linking structures and actions in particular ways and being in tune with others. As it to be expected, networking in the field of "internal security” is still in the initial stages. Whether the network will become be the organisational form of the future as such remains an open question.

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