Frontiers in Political Science

While an originally North American (U.S.) concept following 9/11, homeland security as well as related policy concepts and strategies have started to disseminate around the world and across cultures. At the same time, the concept of civil security has been applied, for example, by European and Commonwealth countries either as a copy concept or a counter concept to homeland security. Related policies and strategies are also being adopted more globally and increasingly connected to human security and resilience. The collection explores how the adaptation and application of homeland and civil security policies in different regions, political cultures, and nations vary, to what extent shared and/or global values prevail, and how priority and value conflicts are resolved in order to achieve democratic, citizen-owned solutions to security and safety challenges emanating from a globalizing threat environment.

Articles address the all-hazards and whole-community spectrum across different political systems; different approaches to the liberty–security continuum; public opinion about homeland and civil security policies; comparative studies of how knowledge and interpretation, normative values, common symbols, and/or action repertories inform the evolution of homeland and civil security mission spaces; as well as case studies from the global homeland and civil security mission space focused on cultural and national responses to the evolving global risk and threat environment, including but not limited to pandemic response and climate change resilience.

Overall, the collection addresses how to accomplish democratic homeland and civil security in the current era characterized by a complex mixture of traditional, advanced persistent and emerging transboundary crises, where the provision of security is oriented toward the goal of resilient societies and infrastructures, while equally based on safeguarding societies’ commonly acquired values. The collection includes theoretical, conceptual, empirical policy analysis, case study, and foresight-oriented type of work.