Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2020 | Page 104

Journal of Critical Infrastructure Policy
Research : empirical research on emergent roles and types of governance networks at federal , state , and municipal levels ; frameworks and indicators of citizen participatory governance in the context of ESS design .
Education : project-based courses that introduce strong dependencies in the workflows that connect the members of multidisciplinary student teams ; educational experiences that explore the consequences of actual and alternative regulatory and governmental structures on ESS design and operation .
Regulatory Frameworks
While COVID-19 ’ s extreme impacts could serve as an accelerator for large-scale re-design of our regulatory frameworks , it is more likely that pure inertia and the lack of political will inhibit sweeping regulatory reform , as in many other prior disasters . We must also accept the reality that we are living in a time of highly decentralized and on-demand delivery of services , so regulatory regimes that leverage societal acceptance of centralized control are going to be met skeptically in countries like the U . S . What then can we learn both from regulatory reform following past disasters and such understanding of attitudes toward regulation in contexts like the U . S .? We must use caution when doing so , as COVID-19 has further amplified the detrimental impacts posed by relying on concepts , frameworks , data , and models that lack the context of inherent conflicts in policy and regulation arising from interactions among different actors ( e . g . Private and public sector ) across multiple scales ( e . g ., structures to systems , local to regional ) and different operating points ( e . g ., typical to extreme conditions ). Adaptive responses to these conditions only heighten the need to explore alternative regulatory frameworks that can ensure continued societal function .
At a minimum , regulatory frameworks that enable and even encourage higher levels of performance-based design will be critical to more resilient engineered structures and services in pandemic contexts . However , while consumers with means are likely to pay more for facilities and services that avoid future disruptions , the same is not true for ESSs serving the most vulnerable , creating an important space for regulatory action that ensures similar protections for the low-income populations reliant on government facilities and services . Further , recognizing the inherent tension between efficiency under normal operating conditions and resilience under extreme operating conditions , regulatory control will provide a vital safety net , establishing an appropriate definition of extreme or “ design-level ” events for ESSs that formally mandate minimum performance standards .
At the same time , ad hoc solutions will inevitably emerge in response to sudden and extreme dysfunction and loss of meaning ( Weick 1993 ). Regulatory schemes must themselves have sufficient agility to accommodate and even acceler-
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