Preparing for disaster: a comparative analysis of education for critical infrastructurecollapse

This article explores policy approaches to educating populations for potential critical infrastructure
collapse in five different countries: the UK, the US, Germany, Japan and New Zealand. ‘Critical
infrastructure’ is not always easy to define, and indeed is defined slightly differently across countries
– it includes entities vital to life, such as utilities (water, energy), transportation systems and
communications, and may also include social and cultural infrastructure. The article is a mapping
exercise of different approaches to critical infrastructure protection and preparedness education by
the five countries. The exercise facilitates a comparison of the countries and enables us to identify
distinctive characteristics of each country’s approach. We argue that contrary to what most scholars
of security have argued, these national approaches diverge greatly, suggesting that they are shaped
more by internal politics and culture than by global approaches.