The Problem of Redundancy Problem: Why More Nuclear Security Forces May Produce Less Nuclear Security

Examines how nuclear security and emerging terrorist threats should be thought about, warning that adding redundancy to improve security can backfire. How redundancy is used to evoke reliability is demonstrated before contrasting that with ""normal accidents theory.'' The latter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inRisk analysis Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 935 - 946
Main Author Sagan, Scott D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 350 Main Street , Malden , MA 02148 , USA , and 9600 Garsington Road , Oxford OX4 2DQ , UK Blackwell Publishing, Inc 01.08.2004
Subjects
Atomic power plants
Counterterrorism
Efficiency, Administrative
Emergency preparedness
Nuclear reactors
Security measures
United States
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Summary:Examines how nuclear security and emerging terrorist threats should be thought about, warning that adding redundancy to improve security can backfire. How redundancy is used to evoke reliability is demonstrated before contrasting that with ""normal accidents theory.'' The latter is further developed with new arguments regarding potentially counterproductive effects of redundancy and with empirical examples. The catastrophic common-mode error problem, the social shirking problem, and the overcompensation problem are analyzed and their implications discussed for the policy issue of whether more security forces will provide improved security against terrorist threats.
Bibliography:istex:67A95B7AEE0DDB733E347D61D8214381D47E63E4
Winner of Columbia University's Institute for War and Peace Studies 2003 best paper in Political Violence prize.
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ArticleID:RISA495
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ISSN:0272-4332
1539-6924
DOI:10.1111/j.0272-4332.2004.00495.x