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Critical infrastructures and the tragedy of the commons dilemma: Implications from institutional restructuring on reliability and safety
Author(s) -
Cedergren Alexander,
Lidell Kristina,
Lidell Kristoffer
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.12262
Subject(s) - restructuring , dilemma , tragedy of the commons , commons , reliability (semiconductor) , competition (biology) , common pool resource , value (mathematics) , business , critical infrastructure , tragedy (event) , perspective (graphical) , resource (disambiguation) , industrial organization , risk analysis (engineering) , economics , law and economics , sociology , computer science , microeconomics , political science , computer security , law , social science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , ecology , computer network , biology , machine learning , physics , finance , power (physics) , epistemology , quantum mechanics
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.