Measuring Security

Does Security Imply Safety? On the (Lack of) Correlation Between Different Aspects of Security

“…Before doing this however, I present three illustrations of the security gap: one stemming from the theoretical model presented in Brück et al (2014) which illustrates how security interventions with a political rationale may decrease technical safety or security, one case study from South Sudan which illustrates how a security intervention with a humanitarian rationale decreased perceived safety, and the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which illustrates that security interventions can be redesigned based on a change in perceived security, whilst technical and perceived safety remain low.…”

“…Brück (2013) for instance argues that tracking instances of violence by politically organised armed groups cannot help to measure security. Security should be measured, he argues, by threats realised relative to the inherent level of threat and the degree of protection (Brück 2013;Brück et al 2014). It is clear that the measure I propose only reflects threats realized.…”

“…The remainder of this paper mainly treats the case when i = j: a person's perception of their own safety. Brück et al (2014) call δ i a 'fear factor' and model perceived safety as the product of this 'fear factor' and effort devoted to terrorism. Hence, this fear factor either amplifies (when greater than 1) or tones down (when between 0 and 1) technical safety in the individual perception (Brück et al 2014).…”

“…The theoretical model by Brück et al (2014) features a government that faces a trade-off between spending on welfare and spending on protection against terrorist threats. Potential terrorists in turn face a trade-off between putting their labour towards terrorist activity or peaceful activity.…”

“…Brück et al (2014) for instance, model an incumbent government and opposition who promise and provide perceived protection from threats to increase their probability of (re-)election. In this model, only the perception of being free from threats (as opposed to being technically free from them) is related to political popularity.…”