Governance of Security Through Civilian Initiatives: Evaluating the Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ in The Hague

The evolution of security provision generated a shift from government to governance. As a consequence, security is increasingly being pursued by networks consisting of public as well as private actors. With the aim of addressing wicked security problems, these actors try join their efforts by exchanging information, coordinate joint responses and in this way generate knowledge regarding the security issue. The Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ are such a security network which aims to address complex security problems within the district Laak in The Hague. Since security networks encounter serious challenges in their efforts to solve these problems that affects the level of legitimacy and effectiveness. Through the evaluation of Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ by qualitative research techniques, this thesis aims to find an answer to the question: “What are the challenges that affect the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ in The Hague?”. This thesis argues that...Show moreThe evolution of security provision generated a shift from government to governance. As a consequence, security is increasingly being pursued by networks consisting of public as well as private actors. With the aim of addressing wicked security problems, these actors try join their efforts by exchanging information, coordinate joint responses and in this way generate knowledge regarding the security issue. The Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ are such a security network which aims to address complex security problems within the district Laak in The Hague. Since security networks encounter serious challenges in their efforts to solve these problems that affects the level of legitimacy and effectiveness. Through the evaluation of Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ by qualitative research techniques, this thesis aims to find an answer to the question: “What are the challenges that affect the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ in The Hague?”. This thesis argues that Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ experiences great internal and social legitimacy but lacks external legitimacy. Furthermore, Al-Wasl is effective from a network-level and organizational-level perspective but lacks scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness on a community-level. However, this thesis argues that Al-Wasl is effective on a community-level since the social-societal contributions to the community being served can be regarded as priceless.Show less

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Governance of Security Through Civilian Initiatives: Evaluating the Community Fathers ‘Al-Wasl’ in The Hague