Who governs Norwegian maritime security? Public facilitation of private security in a fragmented security environment
| Author | Åsne Kalland Aarstad |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836716652425 |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836716652425
Cooperation and Conflict
2017, Vol. 52(2) 261 –279
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836716652425
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Who governs Norwegian
maritime security? Public
facilitation of private security
in a fragmented security
environment
Åsne Kalland Aarstad
Abstract
This article analyses the Norwegian governance of maritime security that surrounds the
accommodation of armed private security provision on board Norwegian-registered ships,
and questions the role of Norwegian public authorities. In 2011, the Norwegian government
introduced a new legal framework that explicitly permitted the use of armed private security
for ships transiting piracy-prone waters. Through an in-depth examination of the agenda
setting, implementation and evaluation phases of the new policy, the article analyses the roles
and responsibilities performed by the involved actors. Comparing the empirical case study
of Norway with the governance literature, it is argued that public actors neither ‘steer’ nor
‘row’, rather they function as facilitators in and for a governance arrangement that is essentially
industry-driven in character. This facilitating role encompasses elements of both acceptance
and contribution, where a low degree of public control was accepted in return for a flexible
and low-cost/risk scheme against piracy. As such, the facilitating role does not support
the view that contemporary security governance is a zero-sum game between public and private
actors. Instead, the facilitating capacities of public authorities are seen as their competitive
advantage in an increasingly fragmented security environment. This article contends that
although maritime governance inhabits peculiarities related to both the shipping industry’s
global competitive character and the maritime domain’s geographical distance from public
authorities, the Norwegian governance of maritime security is nevertheless deeply embedded
in global governance structures. This underscores the need to address the maritime domain
as constitutive of global politics and, in turn, treat the ‘facilitating argument’ developed here as
potentially relevant for the broader governance literature.
Keywords
Global shipping, governance, maritime security, Norwegian shipping, private security,
public/private distinction
Corresponding author:
Åsne Kalland Aarstad, Aarhus University, Bartholins Alle 7, Århus 8000, Denmark.
Email: aka@ps.au.dk
652425CAC0010.1177/0010836716652425Cooperation and ConflictAarstad
research-article2016
Article
262 Cooperation and Conflict 52(2)
Introduction
The image of private security contractors protecting Norwegian-registered commer-
cial ships against non-state actor violence in the Gulf of Aden does not sit easily with
the idea of security provision as a definitional activity of sovereign statehood. This
Weberian idea(l) has, however, rarely existed in an uncompromised fashion outside of
books, whereas the act of private security provision has a long and multifaceted
empirical track record. This article seeks to further our knowledge of the contempo-
rary role of the state as a security provider through an in-depth examination of
Norwegian maritime security governance in the face of the upsurge in piracy in the
Gulf of Aden from 2007 onwards. Like multiple other shipping nations (Van Hespen,
2014), Norway took steps to clarify and explicitly authorise the use of private security
on board its registered fleet at the height of the piracy surge. The process culminated
in a new legal framework that entered into force on 1 June 2011 authorising armed
private maritime security.
The main aim of this article, therefore, is to reflect upon the roles performed by the
various stakeholders within the Norwegian governance arrangement, and to link this
case study to contemporary debates on governance with a specific eye to the changing
role of the state in security provision. Drawing upon works that consider private security
solutions to be an important indicator of evolving state/security relations, this article
examines how new roles and responsibilities are being cast among the actors in the
Norwegian governance of maritime security. The task is important for multiple reasons,
most notably for the purpose of grounding theoretical reflections on the evolving role of
the state as a security provider in detailed empirics. The article therefore starts by outlin-
ing theoretically why the contemporary governance of security involves a multitude of
actors cutting across the public/private and local/global divisions. It then examines how
this fragmentation manifests itself in practice, which actors are involved, through which
means, and with which consequences. Comparing the Norwegian case with the vast gov-
ernance literature, the article argues that the involved public actors are neither rowing nor
steering; rather, they are facilitating a governance arrangement through their convening
capacities and regulatory infrastructures.
Furthermore, the article examines an issue area that is rarely considered relevant for
the purposes of security studies, or the international relations discipline more broadly,
namely the maritime sector and its associated industry actors. This article challenges
implicitly held perceptions of the sea, of the maritime domain and of global shipping
in particular, as a separate sphere different from territorial politics. Although the mari-
time domain inhabits peculiarities that relate to its global structure characterised by
extreme interconnectedness and competitiveness, in turn positioning maritime actors
with a high degree of independence and autonomy in the political-economic landscape,
it is simultaneously deeply embedded in contemporary governance structures that cut
across the sea/land divide.
This article makes use of publicly available documents from public consultations ini-
tiated by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industries and the Ministry of Justice in
March 20111 and July 2012,2 and background interviews with key stakeholders in Oslo
in August 2013 (not directly quoted in text).3
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