Network-Centric Violence, Critical Infrastructure and the Urbanization of Security

Coward, Martin

doi:10.1177/0967010609342879

Cited by 72 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Political conflict has been tentatively linked to urbanisation trends (Auvinen 1997;Goldstone 2002) and, in the words of Martin Coward, 'a reciprocal dynamic of urban securitisation is under way in which the security agenda is urbanised and urbanity is -insofar as it induces insecurity and vulnerability -securitised' (Coward 2009: 400). Cities are sites of critical infrastructure, making them pre-eminent strategic targets in inter-state warfare (Coward 2009, Graham 2004. Meanwhile, even outside of war zones the prevalence of crime and social violence in many developing country cities is giving rise to new policing technologies and perceptions of urban risk (Brennan-Galvin, 2002).…”

Section: Cities Violence and The Urbanisation Of Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model’ City? Politics, Security and Development in Post-conflict Kigali

Goodfellow¹,

Smith²

2013

Urban Studies

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Section: Cities Violence and The Urbanisation Of Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model’ City? Politics, Security and Development in Post-conflict Kigali

Goodfellow¹,

Smith²

2013

Urban Studies

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“…Pelling, ; Loftus and Lumsden, ; Satterthwaite, ; Shapely, ). Urban scholars have recognized technological networks and networked infrastructure to be a constitutive feature of life in cities (Kaika and Swyngedouw, ; Graham and Marvin, ; Coward, ), a source of political power in and of themselves (Meehan, ) or a determining element of social control (Mayntz and Hughes, ). While the focus has been primarily on traditional infrastructure systems such as water, energy, and public health, the crucial importance of the people who operate those systems has also been acknowledged (see e.g.…”

Section: Urban Ecology Of War and Critical Urban Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah

Zeitoun

Elaydi

Dross

et al. 2017

Int J Urban Regional Res

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This article assesses the impact of armed conflict on the drinking water service of Basrah from 1978 to 2013 through an 'urban warfare ecology' lens in order to draw out the implications for relief programming and relevance to urban studies. It interprets an extensive range of unpublished literature through a frame that incorporates the accumulation of direct and indirect impacts upon the hardware, consumables and people upon which urban services rely. The analysis attributes a step-wise decline in service quality to the lack of water treatment chemicals, lack of spare parts, and, primarily, an extended 'brain-drain' of qualified water service staff. The service is found to have been vulnerable to dependence upon foreign parts and people, 'vicious cycles' of impact, and the politics of aid and of reconstruction. It follows that practitioners and donors eschew ideas of relief-rehabilitation-development (RRD) for an appreciation of the needs particular to complex urban warfare biospheres, where armed conflict and sanctions permeate all aspects of service provision through altered biological and social processes. The urban warfare ecology lens is found to be a useful complement to 'infrastructural warfare' research, suggesting the study of protracted armed conflict upon all aspects of urban life be both deepened technically and broadened to other cases.

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“…At the same time, the image of modern critical infrastructures has become one in which it becomes futile to try and separate the human from the technological. Technology is not simply a tool that makes life livable, technologies become constitutive of novel forms of “a complex subjectivity,” which is characterized by an inseparable ensemble of material and human elements (Coward :414). From this ecological understanding of subjectivity, a specific image of society emerges: Society becomes inseparable from critical infrastructure networks.…”

Section: Cyber‐threat Representations: Creating and Changing “The Resmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Cyber-Bombs to Political Fallout: Threat Representations with an Impact in the Cyber-Security Discourse

Cavelty

2013

Int Stud Rev

137

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The link between cyberspace and national security is often presented as an unquestionable and uncontested "truth." However, there is nothing natural or given about this link: It had to be forged, argued, and accepted in the (security) political process. This article explores the constitutive effects of different threat representations in the broader cyber-security discourse. In contrast to previous work on the topic, the focus is not solely on discursive practices by "visible" elite actors, but also on how a variety of less visible actors inside and outside of government shape a reservoir of acceptable threat representations that influence everyday practices of cyber-security. Such an approach allows for a more nuanced understanding of the diverse ways in which cyber-security is presented as a national security issue and of the consequences of particular representations.Matters of cyber-(in)-security-though not always under this name-have been an issue in security politics for at least three decades (Dunn Cavelty 2008).1 As a result, the link between national security and cyberspace has become an uncontested, unshakable "truth" with budgetary and political consequences. However, this link is far more diverse as it is often assumed in the literature. The cybersecurity discourse is about more than one threat form: ranging from computer viruses and other malicious software to cyber-crime activity to the categories of cyber-terror and cyber-war. Each subissue is represented and treated differently in the political process and at different points in time. Consequently, cyber-security policies contain an amalgam of countermeasures, tailored to meet different, and at times conflicting security needs.How these heterogeneous political manifestations are linked to different threat representations-ways to depict what counts as a threat or risk-is the focus of this article. Importantly, and in contrast to most of the other research on the subject, this paper therefore focuses on cyber-security comprehensively, 2 rather than looking at discourse in subcategories like cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism, or cyber- . I would like to thank the participants at these events as well as three anonymous reviewers and the editors of this special issue for their valuable comments.2 I understand cyber-security policy to be the set of technologies, processes, and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access, in accordance with the common information security goals: the protection of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information.

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Network-Centric Violence, Critical Infrastructure and the Urbanization of Security

Cited by 72 publications

References 27 publications

From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model’ City? Politics, Security and Development in Post-conflict Kigali

From Urban Catastrophe to ‘Model’ City? Politics, Security and Development in Post-conflict Kigali

Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah

From Cyber-Bombs to Political Fallout: Threat Representations with an Impact in the Cyber-Security Discourse

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