A review of participatory foresight instruments was conducted

What is it about?

In democratic countries, citizens are informed about economic policies, health systems, and public education, as well as the policy actions addressing these areas. However, the public often only notices security and defence policies when they are lacking. Security and defence foresight exercises are typically seen as the domain of military personnel, technology experts, and politicians, due to their experience with strategic assets and classified information. Although citizens are represented by elected politicians, security and defence issues frequently remain in the political background, overshadowed by more immediate concerns like energy availability and pricing. To increase meaningful citizen participation in security and defence issues, a well-informed citizenry is essential. This requires knowledge of threats, civil rights, technological developments, and international affairs. The multidisciplinary nature of these topics makes selecting suitable participants for foresight exercises complex. While informed citizens can contribute to discussions on future developments and threats, such as artificial intelligence, fake news, and electoral processes, the question remains: how can citizens participate in security and defence foresight exercises? This study, based on the Spanish case, reveals that experts agree on the need for greater citizen participation in defence and security politics. However, they did not offer specific ideas or suggestions for achieving this.

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Why is it important?

It contains a workflow as proposal for useful participatory security and defence foresight exercises.

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