Introduction
The language of openness has become a recurring feature of contemporary political discourse. Governments and civil society actors alike invoke ‘opening’ to signal responsiveness, transparency, and adaptability in the face of societal complexity. In academic debates, ‘open government’ is associated with accountability and participation,Footnote 1 while ‘open democracy’ is linked to inclusivity and empowerment.Footnote 2 Many of these ideas can be traced back to Karl Popper’s notion of the ‘open society’, which emphasises critical revision and institutional flexibility.Footnote 3 Across these contexts, openness appears as a marker of institutional progress in complex modern societies.
In the field of security policy, such expectations have become increasingly visible. Since the end of the Cold War, transformations in security governance have expanded the range of actors, forms of expertise, and societal expectations involved in the production and governance of security.Footnote 4 Beyond traditional concerns of military effectiveness and state secrecy, contemporary security institutions increasingly face demands for transparency, democratic accountability, public justification, and societal engagement.Footnote 5 Recent debates further suggest that security has become increasingly public and contested, with security institutions expected to engage broader societal audiences, competing forms of expertise, and new processes of legitimation.Footnote 6
These broader transformations are also reflected in concrete institutional reforms. In Germany, the Federal Foreign Office’s Review 2014 initiative sought to engage citizens in foreign policy debates, explicitly framing the process as one of opening up.Footnote 7 The Federal Ministry of Defence adopted similar language during the public consultation preceding the 2016 White Paper on German Security Policy.Footnote 8 More recently, the participatory consultations accompanying Germany’s first National Security Strategy in 2022 extended these efforts further by involving randomly selected citizens in structured dialogues.Footnote 9 Across these initiatives, openness was articulated through dialogue, participation, and societal engagement.
Yet these developments give rise to a more fundamental empirical puzzle. While opening initiatives promise broader inclusion and transparency, they do not simply dissolve the boundaries of security organisations. Instead, empirical studies of participatory reforms, public engagement, and institutional outreach suggest that expanding environmental reference often coincides with new forms of selectivity and control.Footnote 10 Access is broadened, but structured; participation is enabled, but mediated; communication is expanded, but filtered. Rather than displacing closure, opening appears to reconfigure it. How can this coexistence of expansion and restriction be explained? Why do attempts to open security organisations so often produce more differentiated – rather than diminished – forms of closure?
This question is of broader significance because participation, consultation, and public engagement increasingly shape how security governance is organised and legitimised. Understanding how security organisations process these expectations is therefore essential for explaining both the possibilities and the limits of organisational opening.
Existing scholarship has approached these dynamics from several directions. Research on security governance has examined how organisations grant access to non-state actors while questioning whether access entails influence.Footnote 11 Studies of politicisation have analysed how security issues expand across actors, arenas, and audiences.Footnote 12 Critical security scholarship has further broadened the debate by interrogating whose voices are included and whose are marginalised.Footnote 13 Collectively, these perspectives have substantially advanced our understanding of participation, contestation, and authority in security politics. Yet they leave one organisational question insufficiently explored: how are these expanding societal expectations translated into the internal operations of security organisations?
Two limitations follow. First, openness is frequently approached through normative categories – participation, transparency, or democratisation – while the organisational mechanisms through which such initiatives are processed remain under-specified.Footnote 14 Second, openness and closure are often implicitly treated as opposing tendencies.Footnote 15 Empirically, however, organisational opening rarely replaces closure. Instead, practices of engagement appear intertwined with, and dependent upon, mechanisms of boundary maintenance.Footnote 16 Addressing this tension requires shifting the analytical focus from evaluating openness to explaining the organisational conditions under which it is produced.
This article argues that Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory provides a particularly suitable framework for analysing these dynamics.Footnote 17 Rather than conceptualising openness and closure as mutually exclusive states, Luhmann treats operational closure as the condition under which systems reproduce themselves, while selective openness structures their engagement with a complex environment.Footnote 18 Participation, transparency, and communication do not enter organisations as ready-made inputs. Instead, they become organisationally meaningful only insofar as they are translated into internally stabilised distinctions. Applied to security organisations, this perspective shifts analytical attention from normative assessments of openness to the organisational processes through which environmental expectations become decision-relevant.
Building on this framework, the article addresses the following research question: how do security policy organisations organise openness while reproducing their operational closure, and what does this reveal about the organisational production and governance of security?
To answer this question, the article examines the German Federal Academy for Security Policy (Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik; BAKS), the federal government’s central interministerial institution for advanced security policy education. Positioned between executive coordination and societal engagement, the BAKS occupies a distinctive place within Germany’s security architecture. Since its establishment in the late Cold War period, it has repeatedly been confronted with demands for broader participation while maintaining its function as a protected forum for executive exchange. As such, it constitutes a theoretically revealing case for analysing how security organisations institutionalise engagement without relinquishing operational closure. Drawing on a longitudinal analysis of archival materials and semi-structured interviews, the article reconstructs these dynamics across five decades of organisational development.
In answering this question, the article makes two contributions. Empirically, it provides the first systematic and historically grounded study of the BAKS, reconstructing how its relations with societal actors have evolved over five decades. Theoretically, it advances a systems-theoretical account of security governance that conceptualises opening as mediated and structured rather than expansive and unbounded.Footnote 19 It shows how processes of engagement are stabilised through organisational interfaces – such as training formats, advisory bodies, and communication structures – that simultaneously expand environmental reference and define its limits. In doing so, the article explains why increased participation and visibility often coincide with intensified selectivity and offers a micro-foundational complement to existing research on security governance and politicisation.
The argument proceeds in four steps. The next section develops the theoretical framework and situates it within existing debates on security governance. The subsequent section outlines the research design and methodological approach. The empirical analysis then traces the development of the BAKS across five phases, identifying recurring patterns through which organisational opening is institutionalised. The conclusion draws out the broader implications for understanding openness, organisational selectivity, and the governance of security.
A system-theoretical framework: Openness through closure
Operational closure and the problem of openness
Luhmann’s point of departure is not whether systems are open or closed, but how they maintain themselves as distinct units under conditions of environmental complexity. This perspective is particularly relevant for analysing contemporary calls to ‘open’ security policy. Rather than asking whether organisations become more open or remain closed, it directs attention to how they reproduce the distinction between themselves and their environment while engaging with external expectations.
At the core of this approach lies a simple but far-reaching proposition: social systems exist only insofar as they continuously reproduce the distinction between system and environment.Footnote 20 A system is therefore not a stable entity but rather an ongoing process of differentiation.Footnote 21 In social systems, this process takes the form of communication, which reproduces the system by generating further communication.
Luhmann describes this recursive mode of reproduction as operational closure.Footnote 22 Operational closure means that a system can produce its operations only through its own operations. Environmental events may affect a system, but they do not determine it directly. They become relevant only insofar as they are processed through distinctions generated within the system itself.Footnote 23 Closure therefore does not imply isolation. Rather, it specifies how environmental dependence becomes possible by structuring the form in which external influence can be registered and processed.Footnote 24
From this perspective, openness cannot mean the suspension of closure. Systems relate to their environment selectively, distinguishing some events as meaningful while ignoring others. Opening is therefore best understood as a selective expansion of environmental reference rather than a dissolution of organisational boundaries.Footnote 25 Applied to the empirical puzzle identified in the introduction, this implies that initiatives to ‘open’ security organisations do not reduce closure. Instead, they reconfigure the criteria through which environmental expectations become organisationally relevant, helping explain why expanding participation often coincides with intensified selectivity.
Organisations as decision systems
These dynamics become more concrete when applied to organisations as decision systems. In Luhmann’s theory, organisations constitute a specific type of social system defined by a distinctive mode of reproduction: the communication of decisions.Footnote 26 Organisations consist of decisions and reproduce themselves through the continuous linking of decisions to decisions.
This perspective departs from more conventional, actor-centred understandings. Individuals do not constitute the organisation. Rather, they belong to its environment. What stabilises the organisation is the recursive network of decisions that defines what counts as a decision, which alternatives are considered, and which premises guide subsequent selections.
In this framework, a decision is not simply an internal act of choice but also a communicative event that distinguishes one possibility from others.Footnote 27 Every decision simultaneously reduces uncertainty by selecting one course of action and generates new uncertainty by creating the need for further decisions. Organisational continuity therefore depends on the recursive linking of decisions over time.
Operational closure at the organisational level means that external developments cannot be directly incorporated as decisions. Environmental expectations – such as demands for participation, transparency, or public engagement – become effective only insofar as they are translated into decision-relevant distinctions. Organisations therefore do not simply respond to their environment. They also process environmental expectations within a decision-based logic. This means that participatory formats, consultations, or communication strategies do not introduce external inputs in a straightforward manner. Rather, they translate external expectations into decision premises – that is, structures that orient future decisions without determining them. Opening thus operates through the internal reorganisation of decision-making rather than the direct incorporation of external actors.
Structural coupling: Selective openness in organised systems
If organisations are operationally closed decision systems, the question arises how they can nonetheless establish durable relations with their environment. Luhmann addresses this through the concept of structural coupling, which is central to the argument developed in this article.Footnote 28
Structural coupling designates stabilised relations between a system and selected aspects of its environment. These relations do not suspend operational closure. Rather, they define the conditions under which environmental developments become organisationally relevant by triggering internally generated operations.
Luhmann conceptualises this process in terms of irritation.Footnote 29 An irritation is not an objective property of the environment but rather a distinction constructed by the system when it registers a discrepancy between its expectations and external developments. Whether an event is perceived as relevant depends on the organisation’s decision premises. Most environmental occurrences remain noise, whereas only some are transformed into decision-relevant distinctions.
Structural coupling stabilises this selectivity over time. Organisations develop specific roles, procedures, and formats that render them particularly sensitive to certain types of irritation while filtering out others. Through repeated processing, these sensitivities become institutionalised. Coupling thus increases responsiveness – but only within parameters defined by the organisation itself.Footnote 30
Processes framed as ‘opening’ can therefore be understood as attempts to establish or modify structural couplings. Participatory formats, advisory bodies, and communication strategies do not integrate society into the organisation in an unmediated way. Instead, they create institutionalised interfaces through which selected actors, expectations, and forms of knowledge become organisationally processable. These interfaces simultaneously define the limits of engagement by specifying which actors, forms of knowledge, and modes of participation are recognised. Opening therefore does not reduce selectivity – it reorganises it through new filtering mechanisms.
Closure and openness are thus not opposing dynamics but mutually constitutive. Through structural coupling, organisations expand their environmental reference while simultaneously consolidating their operational distinctiveness. It is at this level that the coexistence of expansion and restriction – identified as the central puzzle of this article – becomes analytically intelligible.
Implications for analysing security governance
Taken together, this framework reorients the analysis of openness in security governance. While the concepts of operational closure and structural coupling are not confined to the security field, security organisations provide a particularly revealing setting in which to examine them. Unlike many other public organisations, they operate under simultaneously strong pressures for openness and closure: growing demands for transparency, participation, and public justification coexist with requirements of confidentiality, strategic coordination, and protected decision-making. Rather than treating these dynamics as opposing tendencies or evaluating openness primarily in normative terms, the framework developed here examines how they are organisationally produced, stabilised, and managed simultaneously.
Three implications follow. First, opening should be analysed as a reconfiguration of selectivity rather than its reduction. Second, participation, transparency, and communication become analytically relevant only insofar as they are stabilised in decision premises that guide subsequent decisions. Third, the key question is not whether organisations become more open but rather how they structure the channels through which environmental expectations are rendered decision-relevant.
Building on these insights, the article advances a systems-theoretical account of security governance that conceptualises opening as mediated and structured rather than expansive and unbounded. It specifies how processes of engagement are stabilised through organisational interfaces – such as training formats, advisory bodies, and communication structures – that simultaneously expand environmental reference and define its limits, thereby providing a conceptual vocabulary for explaining why increased participation and visibility often coincide with intensified selectivity.
This perspective provides the conceptual lens for the empirical analysis that follows. It allows us to trace how different forms of engagement are institutionalised within the BAKS, how they expand environmental reference, and how they simultaneously redefine the boundaries of organisational relevance.
Research design and methods
Case selection and analytical scope
This article investigates the structural coupling between the Federal Academy for Security Policy (Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik; BAKS) and its public environment. The BAKS constitutes a strategically selected case because it combines core features of executive security institutions with an explicit mandate to engage external audiences, making it particularly suitable for analysing organisational opening in security policy.
The BAKS occupies a central yet analytically underexplored position within Germany’s security architecture. As the federal government’s interministerial organisation for advanced training in security policy, it operates at the intersection of executive coordination, strategic reflection, and elite education. Politically, it is overseen by the Federal Security Council (Bundessicherheitsrat; BSR), a cabinet-level body chaired by the federal chancellor and composed of key ministers across security-relevant portfolios. This institutional embedding places the BAKS within the core of executive security governance while positioning it as a site where broader strategic orientations are articulated and reproduced.
At the same time, the BAKS is characterised by a structural tension that makes it particularly suitable for analysing organisational opening. While embedded within the Federal Ministry of Defence (Bundesministerium der Verteidigung; BMVg) and operating under conditions of confidentiality, its mandate has consistently included engagement with actors beyond the executive, including representatives from academia, business, and the media. This dual positioning renders the BAKS a revealing case for examining how security organisations expand their environmental reference without relinquishing operational closure.
The case further provides rare empirical access to otherwise difficult-to-study organisational processes within a core security institution. Due to restricted accessibility and the classification of many BSR-related documents, the BAKS has received little sustained academic attention.Footnote 31 The combination of newly accessible archival materials and elite interviews enables a systematic reconstruction of organisational practices that are typically shielded from scholarly analysis. In this sense, the BAKS functions as a revelatory case for generating theory-building insights into the organisational dynamics of security governance.
While empirically specific, the BAKS shares key structural characteristics with a broader class of security policy organisations – including national security councils, defence-related training institutions, and ministerial coordination bodies – that operate at the intersection of executive coordination, strategic expertise, professional education, and selective societal engagement.Footnote 32 These organisations combine executive embedding, strategic sensitivity, and protected decision spaces with growing demands for transparency, public legitimacy, and societal engagement.Footnote 33 The BAKS therefore provides a theoretically revealing case for examining how such organisations recalibrate their relationship with their environment under competing pressures for openness and closure.
The empirical analysis covers the period from the early 1970s – when initial proposals for a federal security policy academy emerged – to the present. This longitudinal scope enables the reconstruction of how patterns of structural coupling evolve over time under changing political and organisational conditions.
Operationalising structural coupling
Building on the theoretical framework, structural coupling is operationalised through the analysis of the BAKS’ decision premises. In Luhmann’s sense, decision premises are decisions that orient a multitude of subsequent decisions without determining them.Footnote 34 They stabilise organisational expectations by focusing attention on specific distinctions and rendering particular courses of action more probable.
Decision premises provide a crucial analytical entry point because they capture how processes of organisational opening are translated into internally binding orientations. Rather than treating opening as an external expansion of participation, the analysis examines how such initiatives are stabilised within decision-making structures. Decision premises therefore reveal which external expectations become decision-relevant and under which conditions they are incorporated into organisational processes.
Empirically, decision premises are identified in formal documents that define the BAKS’ mission, structure, and programmatic orientation, including founding decisions, Academy Concepts adopted by the BSR, ministerial directives, and organisational decrees. While the analysis highlights key documents, it draws on a broader archival corpus to reconstruct patterns of organisational orientation over time.
To render structural coupling analytically tractable, the analysis focuses on two dimensions through which organisational boundaries are articulated: the social and the spatial.
The social dimension is structured by the distinction between ego and alter.Footnote 35 In this dimension, the BAKS formulates expectations in relation to a public understood as a bearer of potentially divergent expectations. Decision premises specify which actors are considered relevant, how inclusion is organised, and how expectations are anticipated and processed.
The spatial dimension refers to communicatively constructed distinctions between inside and outside.Footnote 36 Organisational decisions concerning location, infrastructure, access regimes, and event formats structure how boundaries are materially and symbolically enacted. These arrangements shape the conditions of interaction while simultaneously delimiting access and visibility.
Together, these dimensions allow for the reconstruction of how the BAKS stabilises selective relations with its environment through evolving patterns of inclusion and exclusion.
Data and empirical access
The analysis draws on a multi-source research design combining archival research, semi-structured interviews, and publicly available materials. This approach enables a historically grounded reconstruction of organisational processes that are typically difficult to access in the field of security policy.
Archival research was conducted in coordination with the German Federal Archives beginning in mid-2024, including an extended on-site visit to the Military Archives in Freiburg in March 2025. The archival corpus comprises several thousand pages from the Federal Chancellery, the Federal Ministry of Defence, and related bodies, including ministerial correspondence, internal memoranda, preparatory reports, and documents relating to the establishment and development of the BAKS, as well as newly declassified files and documents released upon this author’s request.Footnote 37 These materials provide rare empirical access to internal decision-making processes within a core security institution.
To complement the archival analysis, approximately a dozen semi-structured interviews were conducted with current and former BAKS staff, including individuals in senior positions. The interviews served to contextualise archival findings and provide insight into more recent developments not yet reflected in archived materials. Interviewees were guaranteed anonymity.
Publicly available sources – including official publications, media reports, and the BAKS’ online presence – were analysed to situate internal decision premises within broader patterns of external communication.
The combination of these sources enables triangulation across different types of evidence: archival documents capture formalised decision premises, interviews provide contextual depth, and public materials reflect external self-descriptions. Together, they enable the reconstruction of how organisational relations with the public environment have been stabilised and transformed over time.
Analytical strategy
The empirical analysis proceeds through a qualitative reconstruction of decision premises across five phases of organisational development. These phases are treated as not descriptive periods but rather analytically distinct configurations of structural coupling.
The identification of phases is based on a systematic analysis of archival materials along the social and spatial dimensions, combined with the tracing of key organisational turning points. This approach makes it possible to trace how shifts in organisational orientation become institutionalised in decision premises.
The analysis focuses on recurring distinctions relating to participant selection, target audiences, public communication, and boundary management. Changes in these distinctions are interpreted as indicators of evolving patterns of structural coupling and, more specifically, of shifting forms of selective openness.
The chronological reconstruction traces how demands for opening are translated into stabilised decision premises under changing political and organisational conditions. Rather than measuring openness through predefined indicators, the analysis examines how organisational boundaries are articulated and reconfigured within decision-making processes, thereby capturing how expanding environmental reference simultaneously redefines the conditions of inclusion and exclusion.
Empirical analysis: Navigating openness and closure at the BAKS (1970–2025)
The five phases below trace how the BAKS moved from pre-organisational projects to selective coupling, from stabilised closure to visibility-induced reclosure, and finally to the institutionalisation of opening itself. Rather than a linear transition from closure to openness, the empirical record reveals a cumulative dynamic: each expansion of environmental reference gives rise to new and more differentiated forms of selectivity. The analysis thus reconstructs how openness and closure are not sequential but rather co-evolving organisational conditions.
Failed beginnings: Pre-organisational opening and the limits of interministerial aspiration (1970s–early 1980s)
Initial proposals for a federal training centre in security policy date back to the chancellorship of Willy Brandt. In 1971, a commission on reforms of the Bundeswehr recommended the creation of a ‘Federal Defence Academy’ to provide security policy and strategic training for future commanders of major military units.Footnote 38 The proposed organisation primarily targeted the military sector, and the initiative did not result in political implementation.
A renewed effort followed under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in the early 1980s. This time, the envisioned academy was conceived for a broader audience: senior military officers, high-ranking civil officials, and selected representatives from other sectors of society. Advocates – particularly within the BMVg and the Foreign Office – argued that Germany lacked a counterpart to established organisations in NATO allies such as the British Royal College of Defence Studies and the French Institut des Hautes Études de la Défense Nationale. In contrast to these models, however, the German proposal emphasised an explicitly interministerial structure intended to integrate all security-relevant ministries.Footnote 39
At this stage, however, the proposed academy did not yet exist as an organisation in the systems-theoretical sense. Rather than a stabilised system capable of reproducing its own decisions, the initiative remained a politically articulated project. The distinction between organisation and environment – constitutive for operational closure – had not yet been institutionalised. What was being negotiated, therefore, was not the opening of an existing organisation but rather the conditions under which such an organisation could emerge in the first place.
From the outset, the project was framed as an organisational opening in both participation and content. Plans aimed to avoid military dominance by ensuring balanced representation of civilian officials and even contemplated eventual inclusion of actors from academia, business, trade unions, and international partners. Reflecting this ambition, the term ‘Defence Academy’ was deemed too narrow, and the organisation was to be named the ‘Federal Academy for Security Policy and Strategy’. Bonn, then the federal capital, appeared suitable due to its proximity to ministries and logistical advantages.
Yet this expansive design encountered resistance from civilian ministries within the BSR. Officially, objections centred on capacity constraints: ministries were unwilling to release scarce senior officials for a proposed ten-month training programme, citing operational burdens.Footnote 40 At the same time, ministerial capacities were not simply given but also politically distributed. The absence of sustained political commitment to the project meant that interministerial participation remained fragile. Latent tensions between the BMVg and the Foreign Office over security policy leadership formed part of the broader backdrop, but the proposed academy itself was not perceived as sufficiently consequential to warrant significant institutional investment.
From an organisational perspective, these dynamics point to a more fundamental limitation. While expectations of broad participation and interministerial coordination were articulated, they were not translated into stabilised decision premises capable of structuring subsequent organisational choices. More importantly, the absence of such premises meant that the organisation itself had not yet taken shape as a decision system. The envisaged opening therefore remained programmatic rather than organisational: it expanded the range of potential actors and expectations without establishing the structures through which they could become decision-relevant.
Chancellor Schmidt nevertheless viewed the initiative as a strategic response to widespread public opposition to the 1979 NATO Double-Track Decision. In his view, the mobilisation of the peace movement underscored the need to improve elite coordination and indirectly strengthen public understanding of defence policy. However, this political rationale did not translate into organisational consolidation. Without binding structures that could stabilise selective participation, the project lacked the capacity to process the very expectations it sought to incorporate. In 1982, amid changing political circumstances, the proposal was shelved.
The failed initiatives of the 1970s and early 1980s illustrate a more fundamental condition: organisational opening presupposes the prior constitution of organisational closure. Although expectations of interministerial coordination and broader societal inclusion were articulated, they were not translated into stabilised decision premises capable of reproducing organisational decisions. Without such structures, no durable form of structural coupling could emerge. Opening therefore remained programmatic rather than organisational, expanding potential participation without establishing the conditions under which external expectations could become decision-relevant.
Selective coupling and founding: From the pilot courses to the BAKS (1986–92)
The initiative for a federal training centre in security policy was revitalised through a Franco–German intergovernmental agreement in February 1986, which aimed to deepen bilateral cooperation through joint officer training. In preparation, the Federal Chancellery tasked the BMVg with organising an annual eight-week course on security policy and strategy, beginning in 1987 and initially targeting military officers.Footnote 41 A preparatory team within the Armed Forces Office oversaw implementation.Footnote 42
In contrast to earlier attempts, this phase marked the gradual emergence of a stabilised organisational structure. While the courses did not yet constitute a formal organisation, they established recurring formats, participant selection procedures, and programmatic orientations that began to function as decision premises. In systems-theoretical terms, the initiative moved from a purely programmatic articulation towards the first institutionalisation of organisational closure. This shift is crucial: only once such structures were in place could relations to the environment be stabilised in a selective manner.
While the courses were soon opened to civilian civil servants, this social expansion remained tightly qualified. Participation was limited to individuals already holding senior positions and deemed eligible for further advancement. Interministerial participation proved uneven, as several civilian ministries were weakly represented or absent. Although the format was formally interministerial, its social coupling remained defence-centred in practice. The courses thus stabilised an initial decision premise: high-level security policy training would be oriented towards executive elites rather than broader publics. Opening, in this early organisational form, did not imply broad inclusion but the specification of who could legitimately participate.
Selective engagement with the public sphere began cautiously during this phase. Journalists were invited to closing ceremonies with defence ministers, and occasional media visits were organised. Yet communication policy remained restrictive. Negative publicity was to be avoided, given concerns about cross-departmental and international repercussions. Limited staffing capacity further constrained public outreach. From a systems-theoretical perspective, an initial structural coupling to the public sphere began to take shape, but only through highly mediated and tightly controlled channels. Public visibility was not expanded indiscriminately but was instead selectively organised.
Spatial decisions during the pilot phase reinforced this pattern. The initial venue – Schloss Gracht, a secluded castle near Bonn – signalled symbolic distance from military infrastructure while simultaneously enabling insulation from public scrutiny. Its architectural openness contrasted with its geographical remoteness. A subsequent relocation to a seminar hotel in Bad Honnef preserved this duality: the site was publicly accessible yet secured and monitored by military counter-intelligence. Physical accessibility thus coexisted with operational closure. Spatial arrangements did not dissolve boundaries but instead rendered them more flexible and situationally adjustable. Opening, in spatial terms, entailed a reconfiguration rather than a removal of boundaries.
From the outset, proponents within the BMVg viewed the courses as a precursor to a permanent academy. Parallel political processes culminated in a July 1987 decision by the BSR to establish an interministerial committee assessing the need for high-level security training.Footnote 43 Importantly, the rationale extended beyond internal coordination. Concerns were voiced about insufficient public support for government security policy. These concerns emerged against the backdrop of broader debates about the societal foundations of security policy in late Cold War Europe. While security remained largely understood in military-strategic terms, policymakers increasingly recognised that public acceptance and broader societal support constituted important conditions for the sustainability of security policy.
The proposed response, however, aimed at not direct public engagement but rather training elite participants to function as opinion leaders. Social coupling was thus conceived indirectly, operating through multipliers embedded in established organisations. This further illustrates how opening was translated into selective and mediated forms of engagement rather than broad-based inclusion.
In June 1988, the BSR approved in principle the creation of an interdepartmental training organisation.Footnote 44 The proposed ‘Federal Academy for Security Policy’ would offer a three-month programme for up to forty participants, primarily drawn from federal and state administrations and, ‘at a later stage’, from business and other sectors.Footnote 45 While spatial arrangements remained provisional – programmes were to be held in rented facilities – the organisational core was gradually consolidated.Footnote 46 The range of potential participants expanded, yet this expansion was immediately structured through eligibility criteria and institutional channels, reinforcing the selectivity of access.
Federal Chancellor Kohl supported the initiative but favoured minimal public visibility during its formative phase. Press communication remained restrained. Although public profile was recognised as relevant for attracting lecturers and participants, transparency towards the broader public did not become an explicit objective. This indicates that communicative opening was considered instrumentally, not as an end in itself, and remained subordinate to organisational concerns about control and stability.
In April 1990, the BSR formally resolved to establish the BAKS.Footnote 47 Its mandate emphasised a ‘comprehensive understanding of Germany’s security policy interests beyond departmental boundaries’ through ‘joint training for current and future executives from federal and state ministries as well as from the security policy community’.Footnote 48 The BAKS was placed under the BMVg and governed by a board of trustees chaired by the federal chancellor. A Cabinet decision in July 1990Footnote 49 and a ministerial decree in August 1992Footnote 50 completed its legal establishment. At this point, the organisation had acquired a formalised structure capable of reproducing its own decision-making processes and stabilising its boundary to the environment.
The newly created advisory board, composed of representatives from politics, academia, churches, business, unions, and the media, was intended to integrate ‘socially relevant forces’ into the Academy’s environment.Footnote 51 Yet its role remained consultative. While symbolically broadening the BAKS’ societal reference, it did not alter operational control. In this sense, the advisory board constitutes a paradigmatic example of structural coupling: it institutionalised access for selected external actors while preserving the organisation’s decision autonomy. Openness was thus formalised, but in a manner that reinforced rather than weakened organisational closure.
At its inaugural meeting in January 1992, the board of trustees adopted an Academy Concept that formalised the BAKS’ mission. In addition to internal knowledge transfer, it was tasked with intensifying networks between executive officials and key representatives of public life.Footnote 52 However, this expansion of social coupling remained confined to elite actors. Strategies for general public communication were absent. Spatial questions also remained provisional.Footnote 53 While the Rosenburg – a castle-like villa built in the mid-nineteenth century in the neo-Romanesque style – in Bonn served as administrative headquarters, training continued in rented seminar facilities. Even at this stage, the option of relocating to Berlin was discussed but not pursued.
Operational challenges marked the early years. Renovation delays and temporary office arrangements underscored the fragility of the newly created structure.Footnote 54 Nevertheless, by the early 1990s, stable decision premises had been institutionalised: elite-oriented training, interministerial coordination under defence auspices, and cautious, mediated engagement with selected societal actors. These premises defined not only the organisation’s internal operations but also the conditions under which it related to its environment.
Between 1986 and 1992, the BAKS transitioned from experimental pilot courses to a legally established organisation with stabilised decision premises. This marks the point at which organisational opening became empirically observable as a structured process. Social opening was institutionalised through elite participation and advisory structures, while public communication remained tightly controlled. Structural coupling emerged through selective organisational interfaces that expanded access without diminishing decision autonomy. In contrast to the failed initiatives of the earlier phase, opening no longer remained programmatic but became organisationally stabilised through the very structures that reproduced organisational closure.
Spatial closure and institutional consolidation: The Rosenburg phase (1992–2004)
Following its formal establishment, the BAKS entered a phase of organisational consolidation centred on the Rosenburg in Bonn. While the previous phase had seen the emergence of initial decision premises and selective forms of coupling, this period was characterised by their stabilisation and gradual institutional entrenchment. The 1992 Academy Concept defined the annual two-month course on security policy as the organisation’s flagship format. Participation was primarily directed at federal and state officials at head-of-unit level and restricted to individuals considered ‘recognisably suitable for senior leadership positions’.Footnote 55 Although the Concept permitted inclusion of actors from the ‘security policy-interested environment’, the core orientation remained executive. Opening, at this stage, was no longer programmatic but institutionalised – yet it remained tightly structured through eligibility criteria and organisational expectations.
Throughout the 1990s, this selective opening was gradually expanded. Representatives from business, academia, journalism, and religious organisations were increasingly integrated into the course and related formats. This gradual diversification reflected wider post–Cold War transformations in security politics. As security debates increasingly encompassed political, economic, and societal dimensions, a broader range of actors came to be regarded as relevant contributors to security-related knowledge and expertise. As a result, the initial dominance of military participants declined. By the end of the decade, roughly half of all participants originated from non-governmental sectors. Yet access remained invitation-only and limited to senior figures within established organisations. Social coupling was thus broadened but not generalised. Through a systems-theoretical lens, the organisation increased its environmental reference while simultaneously refining the criteria through which external actors could become decision-relevant.
In parallel, the BAKS developed shorter formats, including media seminars aimed at journalists in senior editorial positions. These seminars sought to ‘update and deepen’ understanding of security policy issues among influential media actors.Footnote 56 The underlying logic was not public deliberation but instead mediated dissemination. Selected opinion leaders were expected to acquire authoritative interpretations of official security policy and reproduce them within broader societal discourse. Social opening therefore operated through multiplier effects rather than direct engagement with the general public. This indirect form of structural coupling allowed the organisation to extend its societal reach while maintaining control over the conditions of communication.
Spatial arrangements reinforced and materialised this selective configuration. While most events were held in rented seminar venues across Germany – including regional seminars targeting state-level actors – the Rosenburg headquarters itself functioned as a tightly controlled environment. The so-called Rosenburg Talks, conducted in the library and governed by strict confidentiality rules, exemplified a limited and carefully managed opening.Footnote 57 Media participants were bound by non-attribution agreements, preserving the BAKS’ protected communicative space. Spatial openness and communicative closure thus coexisted in a carefully calibrated configuration.
The Rosenburg’s architectural symbolism further shaped organisational closure. Originally constructed as a defensive structure, the castle embodied physical insulation. Access was tightly regulated, including formal security screenings. Interview accounts describe the site as effectively ‘barricaded’.Footnote 58 Internally, the secluded setting fostered cohesion and concentrated exchange. Externally, it signalled distance from public visibility. Spatial closure was not merely a backdrop but also an active component in the reproduction of the organisation as a protected decision space. It stabilised interaction formats that depended on confidentiality and reinforced the boundary between internal deliberation and external observation.
Public communication during this period remained minimal. Information activities primarily targeted political stakeholders rather than the general public. Even initiatives such as a prize for accessible communication of security policy were framed as recognition of external actors rather than as an expansion of the BAKS’ own communicative role. The Academy conceived of itself as not a public-facing organisation but rather a protected forum for elite exchange.Footnote 59 Openness, where it occurred, was channelled through selected intermediaries rather than oriented towards broad societal inclusion.
Over time, however, this stabilised configuration generated new tensions. Interview accounts suggest a growing perception within parts of the federal administration that the BAKS was insufficiently responsive to evolving geopolitical dynamics. The metaphor of the ‘Sleeping Beauty Castle’ (Dornröschenburg) captured an internal awareness of relative insulation.Footnote 60 While systematic data on participation trends are unavailable, qualitative evidence indicates that the BAKS’ attractiveness for top-level ministerial actors may have declined, with some ministries sending lower-ranking representatives or disengaging from certain formats. In systems-theoretical terms, the very structures that had stabilised selective coupling now risked reducing the organisation’s sensitivity to external developments. Closure, once a condition for effective coupling, began to limit the organisation’s irritability.
Against this backdrop, reform discussions emerged. Two proposals are particularly noteworthy. First, the duration of the flagship annual security policy course was extended to six months to attract foreign participants, particularly from NATO and EU countries. This cautious internationalisation represented a modest expansion of structural coupling beyond the national context, albeit still confined to elite circles. Second, the question of relocation to Berlin gained traction. Proponents emphasised proximity to political decision makers and the broader security policy community.Footnote 61 Notably, expectations of increased public engagement did not feature prominently in these debates. Spatial recalibration was framed primarily as a means of restoring political centrality and responsiveness rather than expanding societal openness per se.
In March 2001, the board of trustees decided to initiate relocation to ‘a suitable property’.Footnote 62 In April 2004, the Academy officially reopened in Berlin, marking the end of the Rosenburg phase.
Between 1992 and 2004, the BAKS consolidated a stable model of selective structural coupling. Social opening was broadened to include non-governmental elites, yet remained invitation-based and multiplier-oriented, while spatial closure reinforced the organisation’s role as a protected forum for executive coordination. Over time, however, this configuration generated a tendency towards self-referential insulation. Reform initiatives – including internationalisation and relocation – therefore sought not to abandon selective coupling but rather to recalibrate it by restoring organisational responsiveness. This phase reveals a second dynamic: stabilised forms of selective openness can themselves generate pressures for organisational adaptation.
Relocation, visibility and local resistance: Opening under conditions of exposure (2004–15)
In 2004, the BAKS relocated to the Schönhausen Palace complex in the Berlin district of Pankow. This move marked a new phase in which organisational opening became increasingly entangled with public visibility and societal contestation. While earlier forms of selective coupling had been largely mediated and contained, relocation to the capital exposed the BAKS more directly to its environment. The new site carried substantial historical symbolism. Once associated with state authority in both monarchical and East German contexts, the palace complex evoked legacies of political centrality as well as restricted access. While the historic setting offered symbolic capital – linking the Academy to pivotal moments of German and European security policy – it also situated the BAKS within a space marked by past insulation and state control.Footnote 63
The relocation was intended to enhance proximity to federal ministries and the broader security policy community in Berlin. Yet the move did not produce the anticipated reintegration into the centre of executive decision-making. Although ministers occasionally appeared at high-profile events, interview accounts indicate persistent frustration within the BAKS that senior ministerial participation in regular formats remained uneven. Spatial accessibility thus did not automatically translate into increased political centrality. From a systems-theoretical perspective, proximity alone did not guarantee stronger structural coupling to executive actors, as established patterns of selective engagement proved more resilient than spatial reconfiguration.
At the same time, the relocation exposed the BAKS to new forms of public visibility and contestation. The arrival of a federal security organisation in Pankow triggered hostility among segments of the radical left. Demonstrations occurred, graffiti targeted the BAKS, and staff reported isolated assaults.Footnote 64 These developments constituted new forms of environmental irritation that could not be ignored. In response, the BAKS introduced contingency planning and significantly strengthened security measures. The premises were declared a ‘military security area’, granting expanded powers to security forces, including authority for detention and direct coercion.Footnote 65 Video surveillance and permanent security personnel were installed. While the surrounding park remained accessible during the day, the compound was closed at night, and warning signs referenced the potential use of firearms.
This response illustrates a central dynamic of this phase: increased openness in the form of spatial visibility generated new pressures that were processed through intensified boundary maintenance. Exposure did not lead to greater permeability but instead triggered security-driven closure. The legal and material reinforcement of boundaries marked a reconfiguration of operational closure under conditions of heightened environmental observation. In this sense, opening produced new forms of closure – what can be described as visibility-induced closure, in which increased public exposure generates stronger organisational insulation.
The new premises also altered the internal dynamics of training. Unlike earlier seminar venues, which fostered immersion through geographical remoteness, the Berlin location allowed participants to commute and maintain professional commitments. Emerging digital connectivity further reduced physical isolation. What was intended as proximity to the political centre inadvertently weakened the communicative closure that had previously characterised the training environment.Footnote 66 Spatial opening thus had ambivalent effects: while external exposure increased, internal cohesion and insulation were partially reduced. The result was not a simple shift towards openness but rather a reconfiguration of closure across different organisational dimensions.
Social coupling continued to expand during this period. The modular structure of the annual course on security policy attracted a broader mix of international and societal participants. By the late 2000s, nearly half of attendees originated from non-state sectors, particularly business and media. However, participation remained restricted to senior and well-established figures. Gender imbalances persisted, and access was mediated through established networks. Social opening widened but did not generalise. Rather, the expansion of participation was accompanied by increasingly differentiated selection criteria, reinforcing the organisation’s control over who could become decision-relevant.
The 2008 Academy Concept codified this orientation. It reaffirmed ‘current and future high-level executives from federal and state ministries’ as the primary target group while explicitly acknowledging that the inclusion of non-governmental and international participants enhanced the quality of exchange.Footnote 67 For the first time, the Concept also called for ‘active and multi-layered public relations work’ aimed at various audiences.Footnote 68 The BAKS introduced a newsletter and launched a biannual journal intended to stimulate public discourse.Footnote 69
Yet these communicative initiatives proved difficult to stabilise. Limited staff capacity and modest public resonance led to the discontinuation of the journal after a few years.Footnote 70 Interview accounts suggest that outreach remained subordinate to the BAKS’ perceived core mission of elite training. Public engagement was often framed as a potential source of controversy rather than an intrinsic organisational objective.Footnote 71 Communication responsibilities were concentrated in a small unit without strong organisational weight.Footnote 72 This indicates that communicative opening, while formally articulated, was not sufficiently anchored in decision premises to become a durable structural coupling.
Interestingly, while closure towards the broader public largely persisted, the Academy pursued intensified engagement at the local level. Under the motto ‘The BAKS in the heart of Pankow’, it participated in neighbourhood festivals and opened its event facilities for public occasions.Footnote 73 The Schönhauser Lesung series, organised in cooperation with local associations, presented culturally framed discussions of security-related topics.Footnote 74 Attendance remained limited, but these initiatives reflected a geographically bounded mode of structural coupling. Openness was localised and situational, while broader societal engagement remained selective and mediated.
Over time, interview accounts indicate that tensions with local actors eased and informal integration into the neighbourhood improved.Footnote 75 Nevertheless, beyond the immediate vicinity of Pankow, the BAKS’ engagement with the general public remained modest. The organisation thus developed differentiated patterns of coupling: relatively open at the local level, selectively engaged at the national level, and institutionally insulated in its core decision-making processes.
The move to Berlin reconfigured the relationship between organisational visibility and closure. Greater spatial accessibility and public exposure did not diminish organisational boundaries but instead generated new forms of boundary maintenance through legal, material, and organisational security measures. At the same time, social opening continued to expand selectively towards international and non-state elites without becoming generalised. This phase sharpens the central paradox of the article: under conditions of heightened visibility, organisational opening may intensify rather than reduce closure.
Mandated opening and institutionalised selectivity: The post-2015 reforms
Following several years of internal deliberation – particularly within the advisory board – a revised Academy Concept was adopted in January 2015.Footnote 76 This new framework marked the most explicit and far-reaching recalibration of the BAKS’ relationship to its environment since its founding. For the first time, the ‘broader public’ was formally designated as a relevant audience alongside political–administrative and societal elites.Footnote 77 This development mirrored broader tendencies across contemporary security governance, where security institutions increasingly face expectations not only to provide expertise and coordination but also to justify their activities publicly and engage with wider societal audiences. In the revised Concept, the language of ‘adding’ non-governmental participants was replaced by an emphasis on their ‘participation’ as essential to fostering ‘socially networked thinking and action’.Footnote 78 Opening was thus no longer merely practised selectively but also articulated as an explicit organisational objective.
In parallel, the Concept introduced a new official function: ‘public discourse and communication’.Footnote 79 While the traditional triad of knowledge transfer, consensus building, and elite networking remained intact, the BAKS was now formally tasked with contributing to public engagement on security policy. This shift was not merely rhetorical. A dedicated communication division was established as an independent organisational unit, positioned on equal footing with teaching and conference departments.Footnote 80 Its head became part of the leadership structure, and several new positions were created despite ongoing fiscal constraints. Communication was thus transformed from a secondary administrative task into an institutionalised decision premise.Footnote 81 Through a systems-theoretical lens, opening was no longer only realised through selective formats but was also embedded in the organisation’s internal structures.
In practice, this recalibration generated a diversification and professionalisation of engagement formats. The German Forum on Security Policy, co-hosted with federal ministries and think-tanks, aimed to enhance visibility through high-profile speakers and media coverage. Youth-oriented initiatives – including student conferences, a ‘Young Leaders in Security Policy’ working group, internships, and fellowships – sought to cultivate future generations of security professionals. Digital outreach was expanded through a redesigned website and more systematic use of social media platforms. These initiatives extended the organisation’s environmental reference across multiple channels, yet each format remained oriented towards specific and carefully defined audiences.
For the first time, the BAKS also experimented with direct citizen engagement.Footnote 82 In cooperation with political foundations, open-invitation dialogues were organised in external venues, allowing citizens to discuss security issues with political actors and experts. These formats appeared to approximate a less mediated form of structural coupling. However, limited turnout and uncertain strategic impact led to their discontinuation after several iterations. Interview accounts suggest that expectations were oriented less towards open-ended deliberation than measurable resonance and reputational benefit.Footnote 83 More inclusive formats proved difficult to stabilise within the organisation’s existing structures, indicating the limits of less selective forms of coupling.
Despite this formal expansion of communicative structures, the underlying logic of selectivity persisted. Flagship events such as the German Forum remained invitation-based, even as their public visibility increased through livestreams and media reporting.Footnote 84 Youth initiatives targeted highly qualified individuals likely to enter political–administrative elites rather than broader societal constituencies.Footnote 85 Most outreach activities continued to prioritise journalists, researchers, associations, and other multipliers, rather than the general public.Footnote 86 Opening was thus extended across new formats but remained structured through differentiated access criteria.
Importantly, the public was primarily addressed as an audience to be informed and persuaded rather than as a co-producing interlocutor. This asymmetry was reflected in the Concept’s stated objective of increasing ‘understanding and social acceptance’ of government security policy.Footnote 87 Communication was framed as a means of explaining complex policy decisions and legitimising official positions, grounded in the assumption that ministerial actors possessed superior expertise.Footnote 88 In this sense, structural coupling with the public was intensified but remained functionally oriented towards stabilising governmental perspectives rather than enabling reciprocal participation.
Spatial closure also persisted. Although the BAKS highlighted its openness during public events and installed informational displays outside the perimeter, the Schönhausen site retained its legal designation as a military security area. Efforts by successive presidents to moderate visible security signage were constrained by legal requirements.Footnote 89 Access to the compound remained restricted, and confidentiality continued to structure many core formats. Organisational openness was thus communicated outwardly while spatial and procedural boundaries remained firmly in place.
Taken together, the post-2015 reforms represent the most advanced stage in the BAKS’ institutionalisation of opening. Communication structures were expanded, new formats introduced, and the broader public formally recognised as a target audience. Yet this expansion did not diminish organisational closure. Rather, opening itself became institutionalised as a structured and selective process – what can be described as institutionalised opening. Engagement remained oriented towards multipliers, future elites, and strategically relevant audiences, while more inclusive formats proved difficult to sustain. Spatial insulation and confidentiality persisted as core organisational features. The result was not a transition from closure to openness, but the integration of opening into the organisation’s existing logic of selectivity.
This phase marks the culmination of the empirical trajectory traced in this chapter. Opening is no longer an external demand or a contested adjustment but rather an institutionalised organisational function embedded in the structures through which the organisation reproduces itself. Even at its most expansive, opening does not suspend closure but operates through it, confirming that engagement with the public is realised through the reconfiguration rather than the reduction of organisational selectivity. While observed in the BAKS, this pattern points more broadly to how security policy organisations respond to pressures for public engagement: by not dissolving organisational boundaries but rather reorganising them through increasingly differentiated forms of structural coupling.
Conclusion: Opening as the reconfiguration of organisational selectivity
This article set out to explain a persistent empirical puzzle in contemporary security governance: why do initiatives aimed at ‘opening’ security organisations – through participation, transparency, and public engagement – so often generate new forms of selectivity and control rather than diminishing them? Based on a longitudinal analysis of the German Federal Academy for Security Policy (Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik; BAKS), the findings suggest that this outcome is not paradoxical but rather structurally patterned. Opening does not displace organisational closure – it is realised through its reconfiguration.
The empirical analysis demonstrates that expanding organisational engagement with societal actors consistently coincided with the specification of the conditions under which such engagement became possible. Across five decades, the BAKS broadened its environmental reference by including non-governmental actors, international participants, and, more recently, elements of public communication. Yet this expansion was stabilised through structured forms of selectivity. Participation remained mediated through invitation procedures, status-based eligibility criteria, and elite-oriented formats.
Spatial developments followed a similar logic. The relocation from the secluded Rosenburg to Berlin-Schönhausen increased visibility but simultaneously generated intensified forms of boundary management through security infrastructures, legal designations, and regulated access regimes. Likewise, the institutionalisation of communication after 2015 transformed engagement with broader publics into an organisational function embedded in decision premises that predefined audiences, formats, and objectives. Across social, spatial, and communicative dimensions, opening expanded environmental reference while simultaneously redefining the organisational conditions of inclusion.
Taken together, these findings point to a broader organisational mechanism. Rather than integrating society directly, security organisations establish institutionalised interfaces – training formats, advisory bodies, communication structures – through which selected actors, expectations, and forms of knowledge become organisationally processable. These interfaces broaden environmental reference while simultaneously specifying its limits. Opening, in this sense, is not a movement towards general inclusion but a reorganisation of the criteria through which the environment becomes relevant for organisational decision-making.
This perspective challenges a widespread assumption in security studies that openness and closure constitute opposing tendencies.Footnote 90 Across research on securitisation, politicisation, and security governance, openness is frequently associated – explicitly or implicitly – with transparency, participation, or democratisation.Footnote 91 Even where scholars acknowledge the resilience of executive authority, opening is often conceptualised as a countervailing force to bureaucratic insulation.Footnote 92 The analysis developed here suggests that this opposition is analytically misleading. Organisational openness neither replaces nor weakens closure – it presupposes and reproduces it. The relevant analytical question is therefore not whether security organisations become more open, but rather how they reorganise their selectivity under conditions of changing societal expectations.
The article contributes to this reframing by specifying how Luhmann’s systems theory can be mobilised for the empirical analysis of security governance. Conceptualising organisations as operationally closed decision systems shifts analytical attention from external inputs to internal processing.Footnote 93 Participation, transparency, and communication do not enter organisations as given influences but become meaningful only insofar as they are translated into decision premises that structure subsequent operations. Structural coupling captures this process of translation.Footnote 94 Rather than describing permeability in a material sense, it identifies the stabilised channels through which environmental irritations become organisationally relevant without suspending operational autonomy.
Importantly, the value of this perspective for security governance does not lie in identifying a mechanism unique to the security field. Comparable dynamics may well be observable in other policy domains. Security organisations nevertheless provide a particularly revealing empirical setting because they operate under an unusually intense combination of competing expectations. They are increasingly expected to engage broader publics, incorporate diverse forms of expertise, and justify their activities in democratic terms while simultaneously maintaining confidentiality, strategic coordination, and protected spaces of decision-making.Footnote 95 The coexistence of these demands is especially pronounced in security governance, making visible organisational dynamics that may remain less apparent elsewhere. A systems-theoretical perspective is therefore particularly well suited to explaining how security organisations institutionalise engagement without relinquishing the organisational conditions under which security policy can be coordinated.
Building on this framework, the analysis advances three conceptual refinements for security studies. First, it shows that structural coupling operates through selective stabilisation: organisations institutionalise specific interfaces that define which actors and expectations become decision-relevant. Second, it demonstrates that increased visibility can generate countervailing dynamics of closure as organisations respond to exposure by reinforcing boundary control. Third, it conceptualises opening itself as an institutionalised organisational function rather than an external condition or normative benchmark. Together, these refinements provide a more differentiated vocabulary for analysing how security organisations relate to their environment.
These findings also refine current debates on politicisation and democratisation in security governance. Existing research has shown that the multiplication of actors and arenas does not necessarily redistribute authority or diminish executive control.Footnote 96 The present analysis complements this literature by demonstrating how such developments are processed within organisations. Expanding participation does not automatically translate into broader inclusion because organisations transform external expectations into internally stabilised distinctions. The central analytical issue is therefore not simply whether participation occurs, but also how organisations structure the conditions under which participation becomes decision-relevant. At the same time, this does not imply that opening initiatives are merely symbolic. New organisational interfaces can substantially reshape how security policy is communicated, justified, and socially embedded. Their effects, however, remain structured by organisational logics of selectivity, stability, and control.
The developments reconstructed at the BAKS should moreover be situated within broader transformations of contemporary security politics. Over recent decades, security has increasingly been understood as extending beyond narrowly military concerns to encompass societal, economic, technological, and transnational dimensions.Footnote 97 Correspondingly, security governance has become more dispersed, publicly contested, and reliant on broader forms of expertise and legitimacy. The pressures for organisational opening traced in this article should therefore be understood as not idiosyncratic features of the BAKS but rather manifestations of wider transformations in the relationship between security institutions and their societal environments.
The argument developed here is likely to travel beyond the security field. Nevertheless, its explanatory purchase is strongest in organisations operating under conditions of executive embedding and strategic sensitivity, such as defence ministries, national security councils, and institutions of strategic security education.Footnote 98 In such contexts, the need to preserve confidentiality, strategic coordination, and intra-executive trust places enduring constraints on how openness can be organised. Rather than producing a linear movement towards either openness or closure, growing societal expectations generate continuing efforts to establish selective forms of structural coupling through which external demands can be recognised, translated, and stabilised without dissolving protected spaces of decision-making.
Reconceptualising opening as the reconfiguration of organisational selectivity therefore shifts the analytical focus of security studies. Rather than asking whether security governance becomes more open or more closed, it directs attention to how organisations continuously reorganise their relations with the environment under changing political and societal conditions. The case of the BAKS demonstrates that opening is neither a straightforward normative achievement nor a gradual erosion of closure. It is a structured organisational response through which security organisations expand their environmental reference while simultaneously redefining its limits.
As demands for transparency, participation, and public engagement continue to grow, security organisations are unlikely to abandon selective forms of decision-making. Instead, they will continue to develop new ways of organising openness through closure. Understanding this dynamic requires moving beyond the binary of openness and closure towards a more precise account of how organisational boundaries are continuously reconfigured.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to express his sincere gratitude to Anna Geis as well as two anonymous reviewers for their very insightful feedback on earlier versions of this article. A big thank you also to EJIS stewards Prof. Andrew Mumford and Dr Francesca Petrizzo for their impeccable editorial guidance. This work was largely developed as part of the project ‘Recasting the role of citizens in foreign and security policy? Democratic innovations and changing patterns of interaction between European executives and citizens’ (2022–6), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grant number 452986450.
Christian Opitz holds a PhD from the Department for Political Science at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. His research focuses on issues at the intersection of security politics, state administration, and organisational studies. Recent work has been published in Democratization, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, and German Political Science Quarterly. Previously, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Helmut Schmidt University/University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg.
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