The Role of Trust Claims and Public Value Creation in Public Safety Partnerships

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the field of public safety management need to reconcile tensions between public value and profit goals. Little attention is devoted to how private sector marketing efforts aim to overcome the public-private divide. Based on analyses of vendors’ websites, expert interviews, and observations in security fairs, this article explores how trust claims are used by the private sector and might pose a risk of unbalanced value creation. Findings indicate private sector marketing efforts focus on trust building within a traditional bureaucratic and new public management logic while neglecting plural public value governance, potentially weakening collaborative public safety approaches encompassing diverse societal actors. Consequently, private partners might benefit from a disproportionate voice in co-creating public safety and might push a negative public safety agenda. Considering public safety as public value, this article advocates for more inclusive and democratic engagement of plural voices in PPPs in public safety management.