European governance is transforming in the 21st century, with the activities of public health agencies and national security and intelligence agencies blurring in surprising ways. New multiagency collaborations between these actors are being developed to tackle fears about ungovernable subjects who pose risks to the public. Historically, these sectors were separated to ensure limited government, in contradistinction with totalitarian regimes where security services infiltrated every agency of state.
This lecture explores the multiagency structures in Norway and Britain which bring mental health services and the security services into cooperation, when identifying vulnerable, high-risk subjects and explores the changing notions of ‘vulnerability’ – a concept central to contemporary modes of governance of the social.
There have been mass casualty incidents committed by individuals in mental health crisis, mimicking some of the tactics used in ISIS inspired attacks. These few incidents have been securitised by policymakers as falling between the respective remits of the intelligence services and the public health services. Are they terrorists? Or are they acting through illness? In this rhetoric, we see policymakers and senior police articulate that a new subject exists in the digital age – the vulnerable subject whose mental illness and/or autism, social isolation, and exposure to violent digital content evades each respective agency tasked with preventing harm. These vulnerable subjects blur the frames previously used for terrorist evildoers who seek to harm, and those whose mental capacity exposes them to harm and who require protection.
The lecture compares the approaches of Britain, Norway and, for contrast, France, to multiagency prevention work, placing these in the variegated contexts of neoliberal socio-economics and political culture, while unpacking the notion of vulnerability that emerges from multiagency preventive work.
About the lecturer
Charlotte Heath-Kelly is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick, UK (warwick.ac.uk). Her research explores the transformation of security through ideas of vulnerability, memory, and sociotechnical imaginaries of risk. Recently she has completed a 5-year European Research Council project that compared Preventing Violent Extremism programs between 8 European countries - leading to the co-authored book The Politics of Preventing Violent Extremism with Oxford University Press. She has also published books on memorial architecture, ‘vulnerability’ as the meeting point of security and care logics, and Critical Terrorism Studies.
Organiser
Labour and Democracy Hub at OsloMet and the AFI research group Labour, Democracy and Governance.
