Total Defence for the 21st Century: Civilian-Military Collaboration in Scandinavia

Recently, total defence (TD) has re-emerged as a corner stone of national defence and readiness in Scandinavia.

TD combines the efforts of the civilian, military and business sectors to enhance national security and crisis management. Recently, TD capabilities have been tested during COVID-19. For many people in Scandinavia, the reappearance of TD signals a return to familiar rhetoric and practice.

Yet changing social, political and economic circumstances necessitates a significant reinvention of TD policies and modes of collaboration.

Actors from public-private and civilian-military spheres represent different and sometimes conflicting interests, cultures and norms, affecting the management and function of TD.

To understand the challenges of TD collaboration, we study relational aspects on different levels, across sectors and cases.

Our aim is to contribute to knowledge about the challenges of civilian-military collaboration in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish TD.

The question is how emerging collaborative arrangements create new fault lines and power relations between state and non-state actors.

In a comparative case study design, we analyse civilian-military governance and interaction configurations, and analyse intra-group identities and inter-group relations on local and national levels and across civilian, military and commercial boundaries.

The project adds to a broader discussion of how we organise our capacities for security, resilience and crisis management.