Publication

This paper outlines some elements of the genealogy of vital systems security. Vital systems security is a way of problematizing threats to security that can be contrasted to the forms of sovereign state security and population security. Vital systems security takes up events that are uncertain and unpreventable but potentially catastrophic. Its object of protection is the complex of critical systems or networks on which modern economies and polities depend. Vital systems security is, thus, linked to the idea that the very success of industrial and social modernity in managing risks has in fact generated new risks.