CIPP Discussion Paper Series

Critical Thinking: Moving from Infrastructure Protection to Infrastructure Resilience

Series Outline – May 2006

The goal of this working paper series is to point out trajectories of the concept of critical infrastructure resilience in theory, policy, and implementation. On the one hand, “resilience” may just be another policy buzzword; but on the other hand, it might indicate a shift in perception and priority of threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences. Indeed, the Critical Infrastructure Task Force (CITF) has recently presented to the Homeland Security Advisory Committee (HSAC) a recommendation to “Promulgate Critical Infrastructure Resilience (CIR) as the top-level strategic objective -the desired outcome- to drive national policy and planning.”

Defined as the ability of a system to withstand to and recover from adversity, resilience is increasingly applied to larger social and technical systems. Stress and adversity are experienced not only by individuals and groups, but also by organizations and institutions. In the context of increasing natural and man-made threats and vulnerabilities of modern societies, the concept seems particularly useful to inform policies that mitigate the consequences of such events.

As part of this series, the following papers each have a distinct focus for exploring the concept:

In the first paper, the intellectual history of the concept will be illustrated through its usage in theories on organizations and large technical systems, and based on that, the emerging resilience paradigm will be compared to the existing protection paradigm for infrastructure systems.

The second paper will present an initial conception of an alternative, soft security path in the framework of national and homeland security policy, aiming toward ‘social resiliency,’ and addressing themes such as flexible response via self-organizing systems, and non-hierarchical models of internal and external risk communication.

The third paper argues that critical infrastructure resilience requires a different way of thinking about preparing for and managing disasters that result in a comprehensive, all-hazards, cross-sector, grass roots-to-national integrated approach, and will describe the development of a resilience-oriented regional partnership program.

The fourth paper will look at the business case for resilience. Since resilience is achieved through the presence of both protection and response decisions and actions, the classic “defense in depth” model can be used to illustrate an approach to resiliency that puts the components on the table to vie for a share of investment capital along with other business needs. Resiliency must thus begin with the Senior Executives, just as any other strategic issue.

As the discussion evolves, more papers might be added, and CIPP welcomes any feedback as well as ideas for further articles.

Contact:

Critical Infrastructure Protection Program
George Mason University, MS 1G7
Arlington, VA 22201
703.993.4840