Public-Private Partnerships are No Silver Bullet: An Expanded Governance Model for Critical Infrastructure Protection

Abstract

For more than a decade, efforts have been underway to establish Public Private Partnerships (PPP) for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). Due to issues arising in connection with their implementation, there has been increasing criticism in recent years questioning the usefulness of such PPP. However, cooperation between the state and the private corporate sector in CIP is not only useful, but inevitable. This paper will therefore sketch a new and above all broader approach to public private cooperation to help solve some of the problems that have become apparent. Based on the network approach developed by governance theory, it is argued that CIP policy should increasingly rest on self­-regulating and self­-organizing networks. Thus, the government's role would no longer consist in directing and monitoring, but of coordinating the networks and identifying instruments that can help motivate networks to meet the task of CIP.

Keywords: Critical infrastructure protection, Public Private Partnerships, Governance theory, Meta­governance