Towards a New Security Culture 2030

This paper presents results from a Real-Time Delphi Study which focuses on the following research questions: What are the important trends with high impact on public security in Germany until year 2030? What will be the most relevant risks within the next 15 years? How do security or risk research and research policies deal with these challenges?

The aim of the survey is to initiate a broader discussion about the future of public security. Therefore we need to discuss the perspectives of five main expert groups: politics, science, economy, media and end-users (e.g. emergency assistants).

Theoretical and conceptual framework

Theoretically we have two perspectives on security and risk that will form the conceptual framework.  Firstly, we know from risk research, that risk is often understood as the probability that something occurs combined with comprising negative outcome (e.g. Bechmann 1993, Renn et al. 2007). Even if this is criticized (because risks aren’t objectively determinable), it is relevant for security research due to the fact that arguments for political decisions are justified by these calculations. Therefore the paper secondly discusses the empirical findings in the theoretical framework of “security culture” (Daase 2012), which understands security and risk as social constructions based on norms and beliefs.

Methodology

The survey will be conducted as a Real Time Delphi Study, a foresight method that collects data from experts in iterative rounds (cf. Gordon & Pease 2005). After the first round the aggregated results are communicated to the experts immediately so that they can change their first rating.  Within the presented Delphi Study 1200 experts will be invited to take part in the survey which takes place in November 2013.

Results

The results address the above stated questions and will be displayed as statistical numbers and figures.