A comparative study of Norwegian political parties' security risk policies and attitudes

Abstract

An important requirement for any society to function well is security. One question is how political parties as key stakeholders in developing social policy consider security risk in their decision- and policymaking. Or, what the factors shaping security policies of political parties are. This research is an attempt to answer this and other similar questions through a comparative study of the policies of the Norwegian Labour Party and the Conservative Party. Restricting the focus of the research on security risks, the paper approaches security policies of the two political parties from policy, risk science and security perspectives to determine how the parties reflect risk in their policies, how similar or different their attitudes and policies are when it comes to security risk, and how the application of more risk and security concepts and principles will improve their attitudes and policies. The paper finds that factors shaping the policies of the two parties are the level of the security and justice sectors’ failure and success in fulfilling their duties, security threats, uncertainty about consequences of security events, and vulnerability-reducing measures. Other findings of the paper indicate that while the parties have identically structured security policies, have a similar approach and understanding of security, and support cooperation with international stakeholders on security risk management, they differ when it comes to centralization and decentralization of authorities of the security bodies, reflect different numbers of threat actors and security risks, and disagree on privatization of security services or outsourcing of security functions to private firms. Also, the research finds that despite expressing knowledge of risk and security in their policies, the parties avoid using risk science terminology. Finally, the paper suggests that to improve their security policies, the two parties should use findings in risk assessments by security bodies, use more risk science concepts and terminology, and involve risk and security experts in their policymaking processes.