Hi there. In this video, we will explore the multi-actor perspective on security issues. The multi-actor perspective we discuss today is closely related to the multi-level perspective we discussed last time. After all, awareness of multiple levels in the security domain goes hand and hand with encountering a wide variety of actors. During the next few minutes I will explain the origin and content of a multi-actor perspective on security issues. First, we shall explore the need of a multi-actor view on security. Duration of this perspective lies in the recognition of the fact that security issues are wicked. The concept of wicked problems was explained in one of the previous videos. It highlights the fact that security issues do not have a single cause, not one optimal solution, and no particular actor is fully responsible, which makes them complex challenges. Moreover, the complexity and wickedness of security issues makes it impossible for national governments to tackle them all by themselves. Consequently, national governments started to share, delegate, and even outsource security governance to a wide variety of actors. A multi-actor perspective explicitly focuses on this variety of actors present in today's security domain. These actors are considered stakeholders for security challenges for many reasons. Because their interests are at stake, because they signal security issues and put them on the agenda, or because they hold a form of responsibility, and or because they possess valuable resources to do so. The stakeholders can be roughly divided into four categories of actors. First, there are governmental actors, such as national bureaucracy and city governments. And the point of a multi-actor view is to look beyond these public actors as traditional providers of security, and analyze how they were accompanied by others in the security domain. Second, there are private actors. These are mostly businesses, either individually addressing security issues, or engaging in public private partnerships with governmental actors. Think of security firms securing industrial areas, or companies delivering state of the art software for camera surveillance in public spaces, for example. Third, we have NGO's and interest groups addressing security issues themselves, or attempting to safeguard particular interests in the way others do. Fourth, we distinguish societal actors. These are directly involved with security governance, or with forming and communicating public opinion regarding security. These include citizens, politicians and, of course, the media. Interaction between these four types of factors is driven by the fragmentation of resources needed to successfully tackle today's security challenges. This fragmentation leads to mutual resource dependencies, driving actors to engage in more or less horizontal collectives, we call security networks. These networks enable to pool resources, such as information, money, personnel, and strategies needed to address contemporary security issues. And although this may sound very promising, it has been criticized that government actors are collaborating with so many others in delivering security. Both scholars and practitioners raised critical questions about the multi-actor landscape of the security domain. More specifically, the changing position of the state as the primary provider of security and monopolist in holding the power to use force is reminded by questions. Would the state become hollowed out by sharing a primary task with a provider of security? Or, on the contrary, would the state become an even more powerful player by recruiting, regulating and steering other actors addressing security? And speaking of regulation, to what extent and how does the state need to regulate other actors? Especially private actors trying to make a profit out of security, which could be considered a public good. These questions point at ongoing discussions about dilemmas regarding democratic accountability, public values and ethics in the security domain. For now, it is important to stress that a multi-actor perspective allows us to recognize the entrance of new actors from the public, the private, and the societal domain. To wrap up, I will briefly recap the main benefits of the multi-actor perspective on security issues. Applying a multi-actor perspective allows the indication of stakeholders and security issues from the public, the private and the societal sector. With this video, we conclude module three. During this module you have been introduced to four concepts in security studies. Wicked problems, local issues, the multi-level and the multi-actor perspective. In module four, we will dive into the real life security cases. And I hope to see you back in the next module.
