Resilience, Critical Infrastructure, and Molecular Security

The Excess of 'Life' in Biopolitics1

Bibliographic Data

ID2283473
AuthorsTom Lundborg (0000-0001-6496-3875, Swedish Institute of International Affairs, corresponding author), Nick Vaughan-Williams (0000-0002-1689-5932, University of Warwick)
Year2011
Volume5
Issue4
Pages367-383
Publication date2011-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1749-5687.2011.00140.x
OpenAlexW2101647519
LanguageEN
Citations received44
References cited32

This article investigates the political significance of the orientation of Western security relations around critical infrastructure (CI) and resilience planning. While the analysis is located in the International Political Sociology literature, it departs from recent biopolitical accounts of CIs and resilience. These accounts tend to present such apparatuses as closed, totalizing, and inevitably “successful” modes of governance. Rather, we argue that resilient CIs are open, vulnerable, and often absurd systems that continually falter, backfire, and often undermine themselves according to their own logic. By developing what we call a “molecular security” approach, we draw attention to the way in which life constantly evades capture. In this sense, we suggest, there is always an excess of “life” in biopolitics

Computer security · Critical infrastructure · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Sociology · Bacillus and Francisella bacterial research · Computer Science · Global Security and Public Health · Philosophy · Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research