Critical infrastructures and the tragedy of the commons dilemma: Implications from institutional restructuring on reliability and safety

Alexander Cedergren, Kristina Lidell, Kristoffer Lidell

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Abstract

Through the influence of neoliberal ideas, many critical infrastructures that used to be under public ownership have been opened up for market competition. Using the Swedish railway system as a case, this paper empirically explores whether such reforms have given rise to common-pool resource problems, and discusses possible implications. The results show that institutional restructuring has created challenges related to balancing the use of the infrastructure with a sufficient level of maintenance. The paper concludes that the main value of analysing critical infrastructures from the perspective of common-pool resources is the possibility of juxtaposing the way organizational and institutional interactions across scales generate both short-term gains and long-term negative side effects influencing reliability and safety.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)282-292
JournalJournal of Contingencies and Crisis Management
Volume27
Issue number4
Early online date2019 Feb 11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • Political Science (excluding Public Administration Studies and Globalization Studies)
  • Economic Geography

Free keywords

  • common-pool resource
  • critical infrastructure
  • deregulation
  • reliability
  • safety
  • tragedy of the commons

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