Defense Procurement and Democratic Debate: From Depoliticization to Repoliticization

Across Nordic (and European) countries, 2025 has suddenly been all about defense procurement. Public deliberation on this matter could have focused on regulations, reform, or corruption. It has not.

Instead, the conversation has taken the form of a cross-political and almost unanimous agreement that military procurement must increase enormously — and quickly. To shape public debate, peace researchers, security researchers, and legal experts could have offered critical interventions and reflections on tradeoffs in public spending, the risks of militarization, and alternative pathways and visions of peace, and the interlinkage between peace and defense procurement. Yet almost no critical engagement has been forthcoming. This blog is a call for acknowledging the problematic consequences of depoliticizing defense procurement, and academic complicity in this process, but also for embracing the opportunities for collaborative and cross-sectoral repoliticization of this important topic. This blog is in part a translation of a Norwegian language op ed called ‘Defense procurement and democratic debate: a social science blindspot’ published in Stat & Styring March 2025. After publication, I have received encouraging emails from the Norwegian defense establishment – as well as enthusiastic messages from European defense academics who read the piece by way of Google Translate and are worried about corruption. I have also spent time discussing with Nordic academic colleagues whether this silence on defense procurement is a shared Nordic phenomenon.

The feedback I have received is that yes, there is silence, and this silence is problematic. At the same time, it is my clear impression that the defense sector is concerned about capacity and legality and would welcome more debate and more critical interest. The current urgency in buying and spending exacerbates problems identified by the defense sector itself:  incompetence, lack of capacity, delays and corruption are endemic challenges for the militaries that have also for decades been under-resourced, downscaled and subjected to waves of reform. Hence, the decision to expand the argument and do an English language blog. My argument runs as follows:  According to decision-makers, to ensure the national security of Nordic nations, the spending and the political, bureaucratic, and professional focus given to defense procurement must grow significantly. From a democratic standpoint, it is concerning that there is so little political debate about what should be procured, why, and what the strategic, societal and economic consequences will be for Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland domestically but also what the consequences are for peace in the region. I recently attended a breakfast seminar hosted by the Norwegian defense and security industry association. A Danish procurement lawyer noted in his presentation that despite ongoing scandals and delays, the mantra was an urgent ‘køb, køb, køb’ (buy, buy, buy). A defense contractor in the audience was worried about capacity and competence.

Defense procurement is a technical field characterized by complicated regulation, classified information and vast ecosystems of commercial actors, weapons platforms and bespoke supply chains. For non-defense researchers, there is a lot to learn, and not clear where one should begin.  Yet, the almost total absence of critical and informed input from social scientists is regrettable and noticeable. After conducting literature searches in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English, looking at Nordic and international peer-reviewed publications, and, for Norway only, after browsing through harshly worded reports from the Norwegian Office of the Auditor General, McKinsey, and commissioned researchers,  I observe that the absence of any kind of scholarly engagement with defense procurement, not only critical engagement, is both remarkable and lamentable. For example, when Norwegian defense procurement has been discussed in academic journals, it is mostly in the form of contributions from current and former leaders in the defense sector. The topics range from the defense's transformation after the Cold War to today's challenges in improving the defense's operational capabilities. Google Scholar is not entirely deserted: there is some old scholarship with relevant and interesting titles but obviously outdated content. A significant body of new master's theses from educational institutions all over Norway is available. While useful (and for me personally highly educational), these are not peer-reviewed. While the geopolitical situation has changed drastically over the past ten years – and digital technology has become a key area for defense procurement – Nordic social scientists, generally so vocal both on geopolitics and the digital transformation –  have been notably absent. Even the legal scholars, the academic group to which I primarily belong, have not managed to produce any significant peer-reviewed literature on the EU defense procurement directive from 2009 and national regulations mirroring the directive. My professional field, legal sociology, deals neither with procurement nor defense. I could have replaced legal sociology with criminology, political science, international relations, anthropology, human geography — or peace research — and gotten roughly the same answer: there is hardly any social scientist interest in procurement and certainly not in defense procurement.

For the Norwegian context, there are two somewhat overlapping exceptions. The first is a small English-language literature on defense procurement in the Norwegian context. The second is contributions from researchers at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), which belongs to the Ministry of Defence. This group of researchers is Norway's foremost experts in the field. However, there will be no democratic debate with only one hand clapping: These researchers often write on commission and work with security clearances and classified information sources. While FFI produces research critical to national security, FFI cannot deliver critical social science analysis. Critical research requires independence and transparency.

I have written this blog because I believe that defense procurement has been depoliticized. Social scientists must acknowledge this depoliticization and move towards repoliticization.

The lack of critical discussion around defense procurement makes it a leading contender for the dubious distinction of being the most politically significant and economically costly societal issue — yet the one receiving the least competent analysis and debate. The pervasive silence concerning defense procurement is largely, I would argue, due to a lack of thematic interest. The lack of interest pertains to the fact that engagement with procurement has two rather unique characteristics: first, academics begin to yawn when they hear the word 'procurement'  (it's sooooooo boring) and second, there seems to be little stigma attached to this dismissive engagement with one’s lack of knowledge. It is now time to build competence and repoliticize how we understand, engage with, and challenge the politics of defense procurement to contribute to a more critical and informed public conversation. In response to my op.ed, FFI has declared that they are willing to support social science in building capacity to grapple with the generalized blindspot. This is a welcome offer and a good starting point for collaboration, but the responsibility for being curious and engaged remains ours. In conclusion, there are many important questions to examine – but then we must first make an effort to formulate them. A recent contribution on defense ethics encourages scholars to ‘question everything’. My initial list of questions includes the following:

• How is the need for a specific defense procurement defined?
• Through what processes does defense procurement happen?
• What kind of governance do military actors engage in when they procure?
• What does it mean to manage defense procurement responsibly and ethically?
• How, through what mechanisms, and by whom is democratic accountability demanded and implemented?
• How do mega procurements in the domain of defense make Nordic countries more secure in the long term?

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• Kristin Bergtora Sandvik is a Research Professor in Humanitarian Studies at PRIO and a Professor of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo.