National Security Governance and Competing Governance Dilemmas

• In Event: How the Federal Government Shapes Administrative Practices

Abstract

How do societies determine the allocation of authority, power, and resources among competing national security dilemmas? We engage this problem using a governance framework. Scholars from a broad range of disciplines use a governance perspective to understand how humans at the individual, organizational, and societal levels use formal governance structures and informal governance norms to address social problems. In this paper, we use a governance perspective to break down national security problems into constituent variables that help us understand different aspects of national security policy processes.

National security problems are not monolithic—i.e., they are not of one type. Rather, they are multitudinous in that 1) there are many national security problems a state must address, 2) there are many types of national security problems, and we believe most importantly that 3) these national security problems have many different variables that shape the way we should conceive and comprehend national security. Thus, we are interested in how these variables interact in practice. And of these variables, one that is often missing in academic literature pertains to the nature of competing governing dilemmas. We are especially interested in how these governing dilemmas influence national security governance. Consequently, we center these governance dilemmas in the policy process. Ultimately, we offer a framework to help scholars deconstruct national security policy problems as governance problems.

We use three questions to provide the boundaries of this paper. First, how do we assess and understand national security when viewed through a governance perspective? Second, in what ways does a governance framework lead us to look at national security policy processes differently than other perspectives? I.e., what are the assumptions of other perspectives on national security compared to the governance perspective? Third, what does a governance perspective offer us those other perspectives do not?

Author

• Sean Webeck, Defense Security Cooperation University