Everyday Security Threats Perceptions, Experiences, and Consequences [Hardcover]

This book explores citizens' perceptions and experiences of security threats in contemporary Britain, based on twenty focus groups and a large sample survey conducted between April and September 2012. The data is used to investigate the extent to which a diverse public shares government framings of the most pressing security threats, to assess the origins of perceptions of security threats, to investigate what makes some people feel more threatened than others, to examine the effects of threats on other areas of politics and to evaluate the effectiveness of government messages about security threats. We demonstrate widespread heterogeneity in perceptions of issues as security threats and in their origins, with implications for the extent to which shared understandings of threats are an attainable goal. While this study focuses on the British case, it seeks to make broader theoretical and methodological contributions to Political Science, International Relations, Political Psychology, and Security Studies.Introduction
1. Perspectives on security threat politics
2. The 2012 study 'Public perceptions of threat in Britain'
3. The scope of security threats and their causes
4. Security threats and their consequences
5. Government, perceptions, and experiences of security threats, and citizen involvement in the risk management cycle
Conclusion
IndexWhile citizens are asked to involve themselves increasingly in the management of security, practitioners and theorists have paid scant attention to public attitudes to security. This book addresses this issue, systematically exploring the attitudes of British citizens to security threats and their management, with some fascinating findings. Bringing together international relations and political psychology, as well as qualitative and quantitative methods, this important book is a fine example of the insights that can be developed through cooperative research beyond our academic silos.'Matt McDonald is Assol3U