An Analysis of Key Actors Sense and Decision Making under the Oslo Terror Attacks

Societal security and crisis management represents a “wicked problem”. Crises challenge existing patterns of public organization and management; do not fit easily into established organizational contexts, and are constantly framed and reframed. The terror attacks 22nd of July 2011 in Norway were a crisis situation where the government, the public administration and the society as such faced an enormous challenge. Norwegian organisations had no previous experience of responding to similar crises situations, thus, they faced unexpected challenges. This paper will explore how public organisations responded to the crisis by using perspectives from organizational theory and the sensemaking perspective The paper will explore how and why central actors in the police and the health care agencies at the strategical level acted the way they did. The Norwegian police have been criticised whereas the health care services have for the most part been praised for how they handled and executed their tasks.