This thesis evaluates and develops a method for studying the occurrence of cascading effects between critical infrastructures. The thesis also analyzes how the results of previous research using the method may have been affected by certain aspects of the method. Applying different inclusion thresholds and exploring how material could be gathered differently, the thesis provides some tentative answers to the value of using newspaper articles when studying cascading effects. In addition, the thesis offers recommendations for future research and policy on the protection of critical infrastructures.

This thesis evaluates and develops a method for studying the occurrence of cascading effects between critical infrastructures. The thesis also analyzes how the results of previous research using the method may have been affected by certain aspects of the method. Applying different inclusion thresholds and exploring how material could be gathered differently, the thesis provides some tentative answers to the value of using newspaper articles when studying cascading effects. In addition, the thesis offers recommendations for future research and policy on the protection of critical infrastructures.

Incorporating gender into disasters and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is important given women’s and men’s different needs, vulnerabilities, capacities and roles in the context of disasters. Male engagement or ‘men-streaming’ has gained increased attention in research on gender and development, yet it has been overlooked in the field of DRR. This thesis aims to transfer the discussion on male engagement from development to disasters by studying how ‘men-streaming’ is described in the context of DRR. The analysis will build upon a case-study of the Gender Equality Toolkit by The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). A qualitative content analysis will be the main method for the thesis. The Toolkit will be analyzed using an open analytical framework, consisting of three themes: Men as Vulnerable, Men as Capable and Men as Allies. The results illustrate that all three themes of male engagement are described in gender policy for DRR, with a main focus on men’s vulnerabilities. The contribution of this thesis is the recognition that while men are increasingly seen as vulnerable rather than obstacles in the context of DRR, men’s capacities and allyship to women are not fully included in gender policy.

Sverige har genom åren ratificierat en mängd internationella traktater inom folkrättens område som gäller vid krig och konflikt. Enligt Totalförsvarets folkrättsförordning ska de bevakningsansvariga myndigheterna ha kunskap om folkrättens regelverk i krig. Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap har till uppgift att erbjuda utbildning i det folkrättsliga regelverket i krig till dessa myndigheter. Denna uppsats ämnar därför undersöka hur denna folkrättsliga utbildning ser ut och hur väl den implementeras i enlighet med det som står i Totalförsvarets folkrättsförordning.

During the last 20 years there has been an international shift in contingency crisis politics. Different governments are increasingly emphasizing the importance of household preparedness as a strategy for civil crisis preparedness. Studies on these campaigns have analysed the language used to justify the importance of household preparedness and have revealed an ongoing change in the discourse which affects the power relations between the state and citizens. However, a large amount of research has been centred towards Anglo-Saxon countries leaving a scientific gap in our understanding of other contexts. This thesis aims to contribute to filling that gap by exploring the Swedish discourse on household preparedness, a country which has received less attention despite the unique integration of crisis and conflict management into the same policy. The study also aims to contribute to a wider scientific dialog discussing the views of crisis management strategies aimed at civilians. The analysis is based on poststructuralist theory and specifically Foucault’s tools for qualitative text analysis, here used as both theory and a method. The study concludes that the central concepts for the discourse are “household preparedness”, “resistance power” and “robustness”. The discourse is shaped by ideas based on decentralization, individual responsibility, and securitization as well as recent events such as the covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The study identifies two main citizen roles; The first is the “ideal citizen” who has prepared their household for one week without additional aid from the government, is generous in helping others, and has an ability to collect and process information with critical reasoning. The other citizen role is the “help needing citizen” who struggles with achieving household preparedness and requires help from others. Lastly, this essay conclude that local civil society plays a traditionally larger role than earlier since it is expected to help citizens in need and share the responsibility for some of the crisis management with the government. Overall, the thesis fulfils its purpose, and acknowledges that future research could benefit from including alternative methods which capture how citizens perceive and justify household preparedness practices.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka förutsättningarna för det militära försvaret att kunna försörjas med drivmedel från näringslivet under ett väpnat angrepp. Vi har genomfört undersökningen utifrån dagens totalförsvarsförmåga som är under uppbyggnad sedan ett antal år tillbaka.Genom en kvalitativ intervjustudie med representanter från Försvarsmakten, utvalda bevakningsansvariga myndigheter och näringslivet undersökte vi om det finns en vilja och förutsättningar hos de aktörer vi identifierat som avgörande.Vi tillämpade en analysmetod inspirerad av grundad teori och identifierade de förhållanden som råder inom och mellan våra undersökningsenheter. Analysen leder till ett resultat som vi bekräftar med flera befintliga organisatoriska och interorganisatoriska teorier.Våra slutsatser är att det trots stora skillnader mellan undersökningsenheternas egenskaper, ändå finns goda förutsättningar inom och mellan dem, för att uppnå ett gemensamt mål. Däremot saknas andra yttre förutsättningar främst i form av mandat och regelverk som skulle reglera ansvar och uppgifter inom totalförsvaret. / The aim of this thesis, is to investigate the conditions for the Swedish Military Defence Force to incorporate support from the Business sector. The study focusses on the provision of fuel from business sector in the event of an armed attack.Our thesis is conducted from current military and civil defence capabilities, which have been under reconstruction for a couple of years.By conducting a qualitative interview study with representatives from the Swedish Armed Forces, selected Public Agencies and the Business sector, we investigated if there is a will and identified preconditions and factors that we deem crucial for success.We applied a method of the analysis inspired by Grounded Theory and search for factors that can affect the different actors in this study. Results lead to different theories that are supported by existing organisational and inter organisational theories.Our conclusions are that in spite of great differences between the different actors’ properties, there are still good expectations within and between the actors to reach a common goal. However, at present there are limiting factors preventing exploring the position, such as the requirement for mandates and regulations to regulate responsibilities and tasks within, and between the military and the civilian defence.

In this 7.5 HEC B-level thesis in Computer Science, a service desk web application is designed for Swedish government agencies with integrated major incident reporting functionality to the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap). There are several advantages to integrating the major incident reporting procedure into the regular incident management process - information would no longer have to be duplicated, and the problems of untraceability and under-reporting could additionally be solved. The proof-of-concept application was designed and partially developed with ASP.NET Core (MVC) web framework and Bootstrap front-end framework. The user interface was evaluated with heuristic evaluation by the author and two master’s students in Information Security at Luleå Technical University. Although the proposed software and interface design may have left room for improvement, it did highlight the societal need for an efficient and responsible incident management process and the general benefits of integration.

Syftet med vår uppsats har varit att undersöka vilka möjligheter det civila näringslivet har att stödja Försvarsmakten med reparations- och underhållstjänst av försvarsmaktsgemensam materiel under en säkerhetspolitisk kris. Utvecklingen av vårt Totalförsvars har återigen blivit en aktuell fråga, kopplat till det säkerhetspolitiska läget i Europa idag. Det svenska Totalförsvaret syftar till att det civila försvaret tillsammans med Försvarsmakten gemensamt ska stärka samhällets motståndskraft. Ett starkt och robust civilt försvar är en förutsättning för att samhället ska kunna stödja Försvarsmakten under kriser och krig. Metoden som har varit vår ledstång under studien bygger på en induktiv ansats med ett explorativt förhållningssätt. Själva datainsamlingen och bearbetningen av den har varit kvalitativ, där datainsamlingen har genomförts genom semistrukturerade intervjuer av respondenter från både näringslivet och Försvarsmakten. De insamlade data i form av intervjuunderlag har analyserats, kodats och grupperats i teman enligt metoden tematisk analys. Resultatet från studien visar på att Sverige inte längre har den förmåga till krisberedskap som vi hade i slutet av 1990-talet och där regeringen slutligen upphävde förordningen kring motorreparationstjänsten. Vårt insamlade underlag visar dock på att såväl statliga offentliga utredningar, som myndigheter och det civila näringslivet ser ett behov och möjlighet till att kunna återskapa någon form av samverkan mellan civila företag och Försvarsmakten för att öka tillgängligheten på försvarsmaktsgemensam materiel. Studien har kommit fram till att Sverige har förutsättningar för att kunna bygga upp en krisberedskap kring reparations- och underhållstjänst i likhet med den vi hade före juni 2007. I denna nya krisberedskap har civila företag en uppgift i att stödja Försvarsmakten med reparations- och underhållstjänst av försvarsmaktsgemensam materiel vid kriser, väpnat angrepp och krig. / The purpose of this thesis has been to investigate what opportunities the commercial industry has to support the Armed Forces with repair and maintenance services of armed forces common equipment during a security policy crisis. The development of our Total Defence has once again become a topical issue, linked to the security policy situation in Europe today. The Swedish Total Defence aims to ensure that civil defence, together with the Swedish Armed Forces, jointly strengthens the overall resilience of society. A strong and robust civil defence is a prerequisite for society to be able to support the Armed Forces during crises and war. The method that has been our guidance during the study is based on an inductive approach with an exploratory approach. The data collection and its processing has been qualitative, where the data collection has been carried out through semi-structured interviews of respondents from both the commercial industry and the Swedish Armed Forces. The collected data in the form of interview data has been analysed, coded and grouped into themes according to the method of thematic analysis. The results of the study show that Sweden no longer has the capacity for crisis preparedness that we had in the late 1990s and where the government in the end repealed the regulation on the Total Defence repair and maintenance service. However, our collected data shows that both government public inquiries, as well as authorities and the commercial industry, once again see a need and opportunity to recreate some form of collaboration between civilian companies and the Armed Forces in order to increase the availability of joint armed forces equipment. The study has concluded that Sweden has the prerequisites to be able to establish a repair and maintenance service similar to the one we had before June 2007. Where civilian companies have a role in supporting the Armed Forces with the repair and maintenance service of armed forces common equipment in the event of crises, armed attack or war.

Den här uppsatsen undersöker hur Folkhälsomyndigheten, Socialstyrelsen och Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap (MSB) konstruerar identiteter och gemenskaper med de inledande anförandena under de myndighetsgemensamma pressträffarna om covid-19. Materialet utgörs av 40 transkriberade anföranden från perioden mars 2020 till januari 2021 som analyseras i tre steg. I det första identifieras samtliga personliga pronomen i subjektsposition, och VI- och MAN-omtalens klusivitet kategoriseras. I det andra bestäms vilka processtyper som talarna realiserar med omtalen utifrån systemisk-funktionell grammatik. Därefter grupperas omtalen i tre gemenskaper: Myndigheten, Situationen och Allmänheten. I det sista steget analyseras graden av dialogicitet i gemenskaperna utifrån appraisalteorin. Därtill identifieras ett urval samhörighetsmarkörer. Resultatet visar att de tre myndigheterna använder sex typer av VI och fyra typer av MAN. De föredrar att tala om Myndigheten och framställa den som handlingskraftig och kunnig, en karakterisering de också förutsätter att lyssnaren delar. Situationen som gemenskap präglas av beskrivningar och tolkningar, medan Allmänheten formas med uppmaningar och instruktioner. På vilket sätt myndigheterna omtalar gemenskaperna, och i vilken utsträckning de öppnar för andra perspektiv, varierar. Skillnaderna i de språkliga valen kan till viss del förklaras av myndigheternas skilda uppdrag och målgrupper. Men det utbredda användandet av mottagarinkluderande VI bör studeras vidare för att fastställa om inkluderandet är ett uttryck för en tillfällig närhetsskapande kriskommunikationsstrategi eller en indikation på en ytterligare informalisering av myndighetsspråket. / This thesis investigates how three Swedish public authorities – the Public Health Agency of Sweden, the National Board of Health and Welfare, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency – establish identities and alliances in their initial statements during the joint press conferences on covid-19. The material consists of 40 statements made between March 2020 and January 2021. The transcribed statements are analysed in three steps. First, each personal pronoun in the subject position is identified, and the clusivity of first-person plural VI (we) and generic MAN (one) are categorized. Second, the process associated with these pronouns is determined using the systemic functional grammar framework. The categories are then grouped into three speaker-included alliances: The Authority, The Situation, and The General public. In the third step, based on the Appraisal framework these alliances are analysed by the level of engagement stated by the speaker. A selection of lexical indicators of belongingness is also identified. The result shows that the three authorities use six types of first-person plural VI and four types of generic pronoun MAN. They prefer to talk about The Authority and portray it as vigorous and knowledgeable, a characterization they expect the listener to share. The Situation is characterized by descriptions and interpretations, while The General public is established with exhortations and instructions. How the authorities define the alliances and to what extent they are open to other perspectives varies. The differences in linguistic choices can, to a certain degree, be explained by the authorities’ different responsibilities and target audiences. However, the wide dispersive use of a first-person plural VI which includes the public should be further studied to determine if it expresses a crisis communications strategy to temporarily achieve proximity to the citizens or indicates a continuing informalization of the official language.