This study aims to apply a rural perspective in an area where the politics assume an urban norm. Considering the special circumstances in the rural areas of Sweden in terms of geographics and access to services it is substantial to map in what ways these areas differ from the urban life. Hence, this study constitutes a contribution to crisis management in Sweden by introducing the rural perspective and applying in what ways social capital plays a role in strengthening the community resilience. Previous studies have shown that the informal household preparedness is essential to the rural life and how knowledge and experience makes a difference in how different households prepare for crisis. The study is qualitative with an inductive approach and utilizes both an interview study based on semi structured interviews as the main empirical material, as well as a text study to provide supplementary empirical evidence to the conclusions. The informants that take part in the study provides three different practical perspectives along with further empirical material to broaden the conclusions.

Då det svenska omvärldsläget de senaste tio åren blivit sämre till följd av främst Rysslands agerande samt att samhället påfrestats av kriser, likt flyktingkrisen 2015, har bidragit till att totalförsvaret ska återtas. En viktig del av samhällets motståndskraft inom totalförsvaret är att hushåll innehar en rekommenderad hemberedskap för att klara sig självförsörjande en viss tid. Trots en kommunicerad omvärldsbild, ny nationell säkerhetsstrategi och informationskampanjer visar Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskaps (MSB) mätningar att mindre än hälften av hushållen innehar en rekommenderad hemberedskap.Syftet med denna systematiska litteraturstudie är att undersöka vad offentlig förvaltnings informations- och kommunikationsstrategier behöver ta hänsyn till under förutsägelse- och varningsskedet för att effektivt uppmuntra hushåll till att inneha en hemberedskap enligt statens rekommendation.Denna undersökning har endast nyttjat granskade vetenskapliga artiklar som identifierats genom en sökstrategi i databaserna Onesearch, Scopus och PAIS. Av 82st funna artiklar har 8st inkluderats i denna undersökning. Då fältet för denna undersökning är brett har en tvärvetenskaplig ansats tagits, detta innebär att hänsyn till olika forskningstraditioner fått göras i analysen. Analysen har genomförts genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av funna artiklar. Denna analys har gett oss ett resultat bestående av fyra huvudkategorier – Avsändare, Mottagare, Målgrupp samt Risk- och krisinformation.Som ytterligare hjälp att tolka resultatet för att finna hur hushåll motiveras nyttjas teorierna ”Relational theory of risk” och ”Protection motivation theory” för att reflektera över resultatet.Resultatet påvisar att den offentliga förvaltningens kommunikations- och informationsstrategier behöver ta hänsyn till att reviderade och aktuella planverk inom förvaltningen är kända på alla nivåer som kommunikations- och informationsstrategierna utgår ifrån. Strategierna behöver vidare utgå från att målgrupperna som ska nås av informationen är kända och att budskapen är anpassade för dem och den aktuella situationen. Den offentliga förvaltningen behöver tillse att risk- och kriskommunikation sker kontinuerligt så att hemberedskapen upprätthålls och att samhällets motståndskraft är tillräckligt hög för att stå rustad för en oförutsedd kris över tiden.Staten, regioner och kommuner behöver tillse att tillräcklig kunskap och riskmedvetenhet finns i samhället kring hemberedskapen genom kampanjer och att utveckla utbildningsplaner inom grundskola och gymnasium för att en majoritet av allmänheten ska motiveras att inneha en hemberedskap enligt gällande rekommendation. / For the last ten years the security situation has deteriorated in Sweden’s surroundings. Swedish society has also dealt with crisis such as the refugee crisis during 2015. To cope with this new situation, the Swedish parliament decided in 2015 to reinforce Swedish resilience toward crisis and armed conflict. An important part of this decision was to increase resilience within society. A major part of the society resilience is that households are prepared to be self-dependent a certain amount of time. However, even though authorities have communicated the new security situation, established a new national security strategy, and released information campaigns, public polls show that less than half of the population has a household preparedness according to the authority’s recommendations.The aim of this systematic review is to investigate which focus areas authority’s information and communication strategies need to address during the prediction and warning phase to effectively encourage households to have a preparedness according to its recommendation.The systematic review has only used peer review articles that has been identified through a systematic search within the databases Onesearch, Scopus and PAIS. The analysis of the articles has taken an interdisciplinary approach which means that we must acknowledge and adapt to the fact that results from the different articles could be influenced by different science traditions. The analysis consists of a qualitative content analysis of the discovered articles. These analyses have shown four main categories, Sender of information, the Recipient, Targeted groups for the communication and the Risk and crisis communication.As additional support in the interpretation of the results we have used the Relational theory of risk and the Protection motivation theory.The result shows that the government, authorities, counties, and municipalities need to see that the level of knowledge and risk awareness needed among the public regarding household preparedness and its importance for the resilience within society is reached. This can be accomplished by information campaigns and through the educational system to make sure that a majority of the public is motivated to obtain a household preparedness according to recommendations.

This work addresses hurricane preparedness in Escambia County, Florida. It explores preparing for hurricanes as an informal learning process occurring within personal networks and embedded in beliefs, values, and attitudes. Findings reveal that participants learned to prepare from their parents in childhood and improved upon that knowledge through direct experience in adulthood. Later, they passed this knowledge on to their children as well as co-workers. These preparations are embedded in beliefs of self-determination and attitudes of endurance. However, this body of knowledge and their respective practices are not equally accessible to all. Recommendations are provided so local organizations can incorporate local knowledge and practices with preparedness improvement efforts and foster social cohesion as well.

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.