Learning from democratic practice to advance a whole of society approach to national security

On Thursday 24 September, the British Foreign Policy Group (BFPG) and Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) held a discussion on what democratic practice can teach us about a whole of society approach to national security. Participants came from think tanks, government and parliament, the private sector and diplomatic missions. The event ran under the Chatham House Rule.

Democracy and security are often treated as competing priorities. In an era of geopolitical competition, foreign interference and disinformation, it is easy to assume that democratic safeguards must sometimes give way. WFD's recent evidence reviews challenge that assumption. The discussion asked what their findings mean for the UK, including the whole of society approach set out in the Strategic Defence Review and its promised national conversation.

The discussion drew on WFD's global evidence review, Democracy as a Security Asset, which pulls together three decades of peer-reviewed research on how democratic governance and security affect each other.

Consolidated democracies are associated with lower risks of civil war and state repression, more stable civil-military relations, and a higher bar for using force. They still face conflict and external threats. What differs is how those are handled: accountability, oversight and open debate support better decision-making, and the public trust they build makes crisis response easier. The evidence is strongest on civil war, repression and coups, and more moderate on information integrity, crisis response and social trust.

The effect also runs the other way. Sustained security pressure can reshape democratic systems, usually gradually and within existing law. Public preferences shift towards order and protection, executive powers expand, digital monitoring grows and politics polarises. The same openness that makes democracies resilient also gives outside actors ways in. The review concludes that the supposed trade-off between democracy and security is misleading, and that policy should manage the two together.

The main points from the discussion were:

· Social cohesion and trust came up repeatedly. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has recently described security, social cohesion and British values as "inextricably linked", and that fits the review's findings, which tie trust, inclusion and institutional legitimacy to how well a society absorbs shocks.

· Any whole of society approach needs to be localised and clearly communicated. "National security" can feel remote, but connecting it to local contexts can help people understand the risks being addressed, and the role their institutions can

play. Experience from Nordic and Baltic countries suggests this can also give citizens greater ownership and bring them closer to decision makers, strengthening participation and accountability.

· Questions remain about the national conversation promised in the Strategic Defence Review. It could focus on raising awareness of the risks the UK faces, how national security is designed, or building broader public understanding and participation

· Democracy has to sit at the centre of both the approach and the conversation. A conversation goes both ways, so government cannot just talk at the public, and people need to see a benefit. Why should anyone care about national security when their bins aren't being collected?

· Transformative change, like the one the UK now faces, shifting from a contracted-out defence model to a whole of society resilience model requires a renewed understanding of the social contract between the state and society.

· Deliberative democracy, where political decisions are made through reasoned discussion, thoughtful debate, and mutual justification among citizens, was suggested in the Q&A as one way of creating consensus. This approach can be particularly valuable when decisions involve difficult choices, including areas such as defence and national security.

· Some participants raised mis- and disinformation and how best to counter it, which ties back to the emphasis placed in WFD’s evidence review on institutional trust.

We would like to thank everyone who joined us at 1 Birdcage Walk, our speakers, and WFD for bringing its research to the discussion. We are keen to continue this conversation.