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Networks, deregulation, and risk : the politics of critical infrastructure protection

Abstract

The dissertation, "Networks, Deregulation, and Risk: The Politics of Critical Infrastructure Protection," engages post-9/11 debates over the role of public policy and novel technologies in crafting and maintaining resilient infrastructure networks against the threat of terrorism. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, networks of communication, electric power, and transportation (as well as others) became sites of anxiety, debate, and, ultimately, intervention. The dissertation examines three separate infrastructures--the postal system, freight rail transportation, and the electric power grid--and considers the ways in which new regulations and technologies of control are introduced in an effort to counter the presumed disruptive impacts of terrorism. The study follows two related lines of inquiry: First, it examines the relationship between deregulation--the selective and incomplete restructuring of infrastructure regulation in deference to the market--and infrastructure vulnerability; Second, it considers how after 9/11 a cross-section of actors from inside and outside the sphere of traditional national security policymaking intervene in defining the terms on which critical infrastructure protection unfolds. The dissertation argues that deregulation, despite its other merits, creates new forms of infrastructure vulnerability. Critically, the partial deregulation of price-and-entry controls over infrastructure operations transformed the architecture of these networks in ways that make infrastructures both more efficient and more vulnerable to large-scale failure. By foregrounding the role of policy and law in shaping infrastructure networks, the dissertation demonstrates how previous regulatory regimes provided a hedge against large-scale failure and how deregulation, unintentionally, conspired to create networks beset by vulnerabilities. Additionally, the dissertation highlights the surprising conclusion that in the aftermath of 9/11 the perceived risk of terrorism ultimately contributes to the democratization of infrastructure governance. Drawing from the work of Ulrich Beck and notions of securitization, the dissertation examines how risk serves as a resource for otherwise marginalized interest groups to open infrastructure governance to a range of voices. In the reviewed cases, risk does not serve to support the suspension or diminution of democratic practices, but on the contrary enlivens particular aspects of practices of democracy

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