The security of critical infrastructure (CI) has become a key concern for governments and security authorities in the post-9/11 period. On March 6th 2015 the Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative @ Dalhousie University hosted a research workshop titled Critical Infrastructure in Context: Markets, Media & Communities in order to come to terms with some of the challenges in the field of critical infrastructure protection in Canada.
As underscored by Kevin Quigley, Principle Investigator for the CIP Initiative, one of the primary challenges in managing risks to CI is that the majority of CI assets are owned by small- and medium-sized businesses that operate in commercial environments characterized by varying degrees of complexity and competitiveness. As Quigley demonstrated, security tends to be seen as a negative or ‘grudge’ expense in sectors characterized by high degrees of complexity and competitiveness. Information sharing and inter-organizational trust also tend to suffer in these contexts, which further sidelines security and promotes intra-sectoral blindness. The trucking industry is a case in point for these concerns. This stands in contrast to sectors with minimal competition and high degrees of public-private collaboration, such as commercial air travel. Information sharing and inter-organizational trust tend to do well in these contexts and support an overall security regime that is robust, effective, and grounded in everyday routines of its operators. But Quigley also points out that regardless of the structure of the markets in which infrastructure owners operate, infrastructure security is too often neglected until a major incident occurs, at which time public and political attention shifts to ruthless hunts for accountability and blaming rituals over clear-eyed analyses of how infrastructural failures can be prevented in the future.
In focusing on questions of competition, complexity and trust, the workshop provided useful insights into how market structures inhibit or support the provision of infrastructure security in a variety of sectors. Less attention was directed to critical questions such as how the planned privatization and diversification of infrastructure sectors in the past generated the complex terrain of competitive firms now problematized within contemporary policy frameworks, nor to how information and communications technologies are rapidly becoming the meta-infrastructure upon which all other infrastructures depend. But no research team can do it all, and Quigley and colleagues succeeded in what they intended to accomplish. Clearly, however, considerable critical and policy-oriented work remains to be done in this field.
Philip J. Boyle
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology & Legal Studies
University of Waterloo
pjboyle@uwaterloo.ca