Abstract
Modern states increasingly face tasks that call for cooperation across government structures, or between government departments and agencies, the private sector and the civil society. This is true of smaller states with a unified structure. It is all the more true of federal states such as Germany, the United States, and Australia, where attempts to reorganize responsibility for these tasks are hampered by constitutional restraints.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the United States decided to overhaul the federal responsibility for many national security tasks. One major result was the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. Australia, which closely felt the impact of the Bali bombings in October 2002, chose a different approach: a “joined-up” or “whole-of-government” approach that relies on formal and informal structures—networks—to get the relevant departments and agencies to work more effectively together, promoting their individual goals and their shared goals.
Chad Whelan, a lecturer in criminology at Deakin University in Australia, has studied the use of networks in Australian national security. He notes that networks are an effective means to manage complex problems that require coordination between governmental departments and agencies. In preparing the book, Whelan conducted 20 interviews with Australian security, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel. Snippets from these interviews are used throughout the book to illustrate various points. The result is an empirical study of a hush–hush subject, and thus of interest in several respects.
The book has a clear and logical structure. After a brief discussion of network analysis, network organizations and security networks, he sets out the methodological framework and issues for his book. This is followed by the meat of the book, which consists of five levels of analysis: networks and structure, networks and culture, networks and policy, networks and technology, and networks and relationships. Each section follows the same pattern: an introduction, a discussion of the main issues, and Whelan’s conclusions. The same issue is analyzed from different perspectives, often successively within the space of only a few pages, an approach which at times does give a hint of repetitiveness.
The discussion on network and structure compares a hub design with an “all-channel” design. The hub design has a lead organization which coordinates the decisions and activities of the actors in the network, while the all-channel design distributes power equally through the network. The all-channel model tends to align itself with the whole-of-government organizational principle, and Whelan finds it better for sharing information. Whelan also makes the distinction between network design, which looks at the static situation, and network development, which looks at how networks respond to change, and enters into a brief discussion of exclusive versus inclusive networks.
Whelan’s discussion of networks and culture proceeds on two levels: the culture of the network as a unit and the different cultures of the individual actors. He notes that network culture both develops by design (i.e., it can be fostered and managed, but only up to a point) and emerges over time. A positive network culture brings with it a sense of cause and purpose, and gets the actors to work together. A key element in developing a network culture is getting the actors to move between their specialty fields, so that they can see how the others work and think. In this way, they can better understand their respective roles and responsibilities and make the necessary adaptations to their thinking.
In respect of networks and policy, Whelan makes the point that network policies are designed to provide internal network control. These policies control the sharing of information and the roles and responsibilities of the actors. Given that the context of Whelan’s study is national security, he pays considerable attention to the “need to know” versus the “need to share” principles in controlling access to information.
The fourth level of analysis, networks and technology, revolves primarily around the ways in which communication technologies both “enable” networks (in the sense that they provide opportunities for networks to develop and for networks to more efficiently and effectively process information) and “disable” networks (e.g., due to problems of interoperability, and the lacking capacity of systems to process large amounts of data and information). This discussion is particularly relevant to national security, where much information needs to be analyzed by many persons, and there are different security levels. The discussion is not necessarily particularly relevant to other types of networks, where the purpose of the network is not so much to react to individual threats and cases but to develop a general policy and get the actors to implement this policy.
The final level of analysis looks at networks and relationships. Whelan notes that social networks (the micro level) are the informal ties and interpersonal relationships, while organizational networks (the macro level) are the formal interorganizational relationships. He argues that the former has been overlooked in security network studies, and although informal networks have been much studied, there is little research on informal networks between organizations.
In this connection, Whelan also considers interpersonal trust, and ways to manage the development of trust—since trust is in many ways key to getting networks to function effectively. He notes that the potential downsides of informal networks include a lack of accountability and dependence on the individual (who may shift to another job).
Throughout, Whelan is able to mine the extensive interviews quite well, allowing the national security practitioners to make a number of points, and then placing these points in the context of his five levels of analysis. Whelan has also studied the literature extensively, as shown by the fact that the bibliography takes up roughly one tenth of the length of the book.
The book is clearly useful for those involved in interagency coordination in national security—already in itself quite a large market. Despite his focus on national security, Whelan’s analysis of networks has wider applicability in studies of public administration, both in respect of criminal justice issues (community crime prevention projects and anticorruption networks come readily to mind) and in respect of other issues that cut across traditional structures (e.g., the integration of migrants). One of the main insights provided by Whelan’s book is that merely setting up a network—bring representatives of different departments and agencies around a table—and hoping for the best is not enough. In order for a network to function effectively, its structure, culture, policy, technology, and relationships can and must be managed. Whelan has helped to identify many ways in which this can be done.