Public Perceptions of Threat in Britain: Security in an Age of Austerity

根据2008年和2010年发布的最新《国家安全战略》（National Security Strategies），自冷战以来，由于全球化带来的相互联系日益紧密，英国所处的国际政治格局发生了巨大变化。英国在国内外的利益不再被认为受到某个特定国家的威胁，而是受到一个复杂的威胁网络的威胁，据称包括：国际恐怖主义、大规模杀伤性武器、冲突和失败国家、流行病和跨国犯罪。历届工党和保守党-自由民主党政府都承诺，不仅要建立一个有弹性的安全架构，旨在识别和减轻这些威胁的影响。他们的主要目标之一也是让英国公众放心，提高民众的集体安全水平，减少被“威胁”的主观感觉。然而，尽管自2001年以来，安全预算增加了两倍，到2011年将超过35亿英镑，公众对安全威胁的态度却知之甚少，普通民众认为威胁的问题是什么，他们是否同意——或者确实意识到——政府试图让他们感到更“安全”，以及这些尝试是否有任何影响。考虑到削减财政赤字的必要性，以及在包括国家安全在内的政府所有领域的公共支出做出艰难决定的必要性，公众对英国安全威胁看法的信息缺乏变得更加严重。因此，我们项目的目的是通过开展一项创新和及时的试点调查来解决这一差距：a)公众如何理解“威胁”和“安全”的相关概念；b)他们认为在当代政治生活中对他们的安全最紧迫的威胁是什么；c)对安全的感知威胁如何以及是否影响其他政治态度，如对外围群体的宽容；d)他们的观点是否与政府的《国家安全战略》（National Security Strategy）所提出的对英国安全的最大威胁以及应对和减轻这些威胁的有效方法一致或不同。我们的研究计划旨在收集来自不列颠群岛主要地区的观点，包括来自不同社会经济，宗教和文化背景的不同生命阶段的人。除了涉及2000名受访者的大规模调查外，我们还会进行3-4名受访者的“小型小组”，以深入了解个人的意见，并研究小组间的互动。然后，我们的结果将与精英对威胁的表述进行比较和对比，如在国家安全战略中发现的那样，以建立一幅“官方”和“日常”对安全态度之间一致性的图景。为了与当前政府的“大社会”方针保持一致，这项研究的结果将为公众的态度和意见提供实质性的政策辩论，例如与2010年安全防御和安全审查有关的辩论。我们将通过向主要组织和最终用户（内阁办公室、国家安全委员会、安全和反恐办公室）提交一系列政策文件，向主要利益相关者提供反馈。此外，该项目将为今后的学术研究开辟新的和创新的途径，分别在比较背景下研究公众对威胁的看法，以及在安全研究和政治心理学的子学科中更广泛地研究对威胁定义的认知和情感影响。

The international political landscape in which Britain operates has been transformed dramatically since the Cold War as a result of increased interconnectedness arising from globalisation, according to recent National Security Strategies published in 2008 and 2010. No longer are British interests at home and abroad considered to be under threat from one particular state, but rather from a complex web of threats said to include: international terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, conflict and failed states, pandemics, and trans-national crime. Successive Labour and Conservative-Liberal Democratic governments have pledged not only to develop a resilient security architecture designed to identify and mitigate against the effects of these threats. One of their key objectives has also been to reassure the British public, to heighten collective levels of security among the population, and to reduce subjective feelings of being "threatened". Yet, despite a tripling of the security budget since 2001 to just over £3.5 billion by 2011, little is known about public attitudes towards security threats, what sorts of issues ordinary people find threatening, whether they agree with -- or indeed are aware of -- governments' attempts to make them feel more "secure", and whether these attempts have any impact. This lack of information about public perceptions of security threats in Britain is made all the more serious in view of the need for reductions in the fiscal deficit and tough decisions about public spending in all areas of government including National Security. The aim of our project, therefore, is to address this gap by launching an innovative and timely pilot investigation into a) how members of the public understand the related concepts of "threat" and "security", b) what they consider to be the most pressing threats to their security in contemporary political life, c) how and whether perceived threats to security influence other political attitudes such as tolerance of outgroups, and d) whether their views coincide or diverge from what the government's National Security Strategy presents as the greatest threats to British security and effective ways to respond to and mitigate them. Our programme of research seeks to gather views from across the main regions of the British Isles, including people of varying lifestage from different socio-economic, religious and cultural backgrounds. As well as a large-scale survey involving 2000 respondents, we shall conduct "mini groups" of 3-4 respondents in order to obtain views from individuals in-depth but also to examine group interactions. Our results will then be compared and contrasted with elite representations of threat, as found in, inter alia, the National Security Strategies, to build a picture of the congruence between "official" and "everyday" attitudes towards security. In keeping with the present government's 'Big Society' approach, the findings of the study will feed the attitudes and opinions of members of the public into substantive policy debates, such as those pertaining to the 2010 Security Defence and Security Review. We shall achieve this feed-back to key stakeholders through a series of policy papers to be presented at briefings with key organisations and end-users (Cabinet Office, National Security Council, Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism). Additionally, the project will open up new and innovative avenues for future academic research into public perceptions of threat in comparative contexts and cognitive and affective influences on threat definition more generally in the sub-disciplines of security studies and political psychology, respectively.