How the British people understand their own security is a question that ought to be central to security policy analysis. Yet public opinion polling on security issues almost always seeks to gauge reaction to and validation of a small range of established security threats and responses. New research by Rethinking Security and Coventry University sought to let people define their own security and how it relates to the UK state and society. The responses were startling.
A new Rethinking Security report How do the British People Understand their Security? Responses from a new approach to public opinion surveying sets out the findings from two representative public opinion surveys conducted in January-March 2023 across the UK by Savanta on behalf of the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR) at the University of Coventry as part of our Alternative Security Review project. One survey used a sample of 1,091 respondents between the ages of 16 and 30; the other used a sample of 2,004 respondents between the ages of 31 and 75.
Objective and approach
In contrast to conventional methods of polling opinion on security issues, which tend to use leading questions on ‘threats’ and a constrained range of response options, the CTPSR-designed surveys aimed to elicit the public’s own understanding of ‘security’ through the use of open questions; to avoid closed questions that limit the public to selecting threats and responses pre-identified by security elites; and to use methodologies that elicit the perspectives of a diverse UK public, including minority and marginalised groups.
Findings
Overall, responses to the surveys suggest that members of the general public think very differently about their own ‘security’ and that of the UK when allowed to shape their own definitions.
Unprompted, they are much more likely to be concerned about their own wellbeing and socioeconomic conditions than about external threats. They are also ambivalent, and often deeply sceptical of, the protection nominally provided to them by the British state. While the findings are likely to reflect the specific context of early 2023 – including cost of living crisis, two recent changes of prime minister, and the disruptive legacies of COVID and Brexit – they highlight deep concerns about human insecurity and the adequacy of government protection and assistance measures.
While the majority of respondents defined their own ‘secure life’ in positive terms, rather than in terms of absence of or protection from threats, a context of economic precarity was apparent.
Half of respondents of both age groups cited financial security, predominantly from the perspective of having ‘enough’ to cover basic cost of living, including housing and food. Nearly a quarter of respondents under 30 specifically mentioned having a job or employment security as integral to their security, and 27% of them cited security of housing. Unprompted, a statistically insignificant proportion of respondents cited absence or war or terrorism and only 4% cited concerns about crime.
In both surveys just over one-fifth of respondents stated that living in the UK did not give them the security they described.
This proportion was highest among 25-30 year olds (over 30%), with this rate being slightly higher among young men than young women. Respondents under 30 from minoritised ethnic groups were also nearly 50% more likely than White British respondents to say they lacked this secure life.
Definitions of security that relate to positive or human security were far more popular with respondents than definitions more closely related to negative or national security.
Asked to choose from a list of eight definitions of security which most closely cohered with their own definition, respondents overwhelmingly chose those related to human security rather than national security. “Ability to go about my daily life without threat” and “Financial and economic wellbeing” were the two very clearly preferred definitions among both age groups.Definitions related to protection, international relations and strong military power were favoured by only 17% of respondents under 30 and less than 27% of older respondents.
When asked to consider their own wellbeing, people value community, environment, public services and civil liberties.
Asked to rate 28 issues as they impacted their own quality of life (negatively, positively or don’t know) seven issues were rated positively by a majority of respondents in both age groups: having supportive communities and friends (‘people to ask for help’), access to food, healthcare, education and the natural environment, living in a multicultural society, and freedom of speech.
Rather than external threats, respondents overwhelmingly identified corruption and their own government’s actions as threats to UK national security.
Asked to rate (significant, neutral, not significant) the same 28 issues as threats to UK national securitythere were seven key issues identified, each attracting at least a plurality (if not outright majority) who rated them as significant. The lead issue for both age groups was corruption, followed closely by the actions of the UK government, pandemics, climate change and the state of the economy. The surveys did not elucidate what kind of corruption or which actions of government people felt were most threatening but the responses indicate a significant lack of trust in the UK government among citizens. This is magnified among 16-30 year olds, more than two-thirds of whom rated corruption (74%) and the actions of their own government (68%) as significant threats to national security.
Generational, gender and ethnic differences are significant but rarely polarising in how people in the UK view their security.
Asked to choose between pairs of opposing words or phrases that best define security, respondents mainly chose those characteristic of higher levels of visibility, policing, surveillance and open space, but with some notable differences between age, gender and ethnic groups. Attitudes towards food banks were a surprise. There is greater acceptance of food banks amongst younger generations than older ones, and both groups saw them as mainly positive. Whether they see them as a sign of a caring community, rather than of underlying social crisis, is unclear.
People are generally not opposed to the police, but want them to be better as well as to be more present.
Asked unprompted to choose three things that would make them feel safer living in the UK, almost half of respondents mentioned policing. Younger respondents were more focused on improvements in policing, while older respondents were more likely to call for a higher police presence. Responding to or ending crime were also mentioned by one-fifth of all respondents. A similar proportion of under-30s called for better lit spaces or greater surveillance of the public realm.
Younger people, and especially young women, are more likely to have experienced personal security threats.
27% of under-30s and 17% of 31-75 year-old respondents reported that they had personally experienced security threats in the last year. Most commonly, these related to various forms of sexual harassment or intimidation and disproportionately impacted female respondents under 30. Physical assault and robbery (actual or attempted) were also commonly cited threats experienced. Experiences of homelessness and home or economic insecurity were cited by smaller minorities of respondents.
Unprompted, only a statistically insignificant percentage of respondents cited security concerns about immigration or geopolitical challenges.
Asked for any other comments, the most commonly cited related to immigration, policing, international security threats (including from Russia, China, terrorism and nuclear weapons), financial concerns, and criticisms of the government. However, none was representative of more than 1% of all survey participants since only 7% answered this final question.
This article is an edited version of the executive summary of the full report How do the British People Understand their Security? Responses from a new approach to public opinion surveying, written by Prof Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, Anna Gillions, Anna Gillions, Dr David Curran and Zsófia Hacsek.
The report is part of the research undertaken as part of Rethinking Security’s Alternative Security Review project and forms part of the evidence base for our forthcoming Human Security Strategy for the UK.
Image Credit: Leonie Mills-Woanya, Rethinking Security.
