No. 1
Systemic Risk
Systemic risk has become a central topic of expert discussion and political debate amidst the financial crisis that began in 2008, but it also has resonances across many other domains in which catastrophic threats loom – including internet security, supply chain management, catastrophe insurance, and critical infrastructure protection. In this issue, we invited scholars to contribute genealogical and conceptual framings that inform critical inquiry into this increasingly important concept. The result is not a traditional collection of academic articles but a set of brief, preliminary reflections, prepared on short notice, that address a common set of questions, along with a handful of documents, links, images and videos that illustrate different aspects of the concept.
Published January 2011
In This Issue
The Emergence of Systemic Financial Risk: From Structural Adjustment (Back) To Vulnerability Reduction
How did "systemic risk" emerge from the Latin American Debt Crisis? Onur Ozgöde explains
Systemic Financial Risks and How to Cope With Them
Grahame Thompson explores the Efficient Market Hypothesis and models of Systemic Risk in Economics.
System Vulnerability and the Problem of National Survival
Stephen J. Collier and Andrew Lakoff explode strategic bombing theory and the emergence of system-vulnerability thinking.
Resilience and Homeland Security: Patriotism, Anxiety, and Complex System Dynamics
In the realm of U.S. homeland security, the word of the day seems to be “resilience.” Benjamin Sims explains.
The Pre-History of Resilience in Ecological Research
Brian Lindseth explains how "resilience" migrated from ecology of the 1970s to the systemic risks of the present.
Complexity, Ecology, Finance
Andrew Haldane, Senior Bank of England official, has called for more ecology in the study of finance (read his report). A Financial Times Article reports and offers analysis by prodigal anthropologist Gillian Tett (and co-authors).
The Morris Worm
The Morris worm was released in November of 1988. It was launched surreptitiously from an MIT computer by graduate student Robert Tappan Morris at Cornell University, and spread to internet-connected computers running the BSD variant of UNIX. The worm was designed to be undetectable, but a design flaw led it to create far more copies ...
The Morris Worm on television
How W32.stuxnet works
Symantec security response demonstrates how to hack a nuclear power plant. Read their report.
Logistics’ Liabilities
Deborah Cowen tracks how the movement of goods shapes the meaning of risk.
How Shit Happens, or, How Audit Systems and Sewer States Lead to Tainted Beef
Elizabeth Cullen Dunn takes a hard look at how risk management systems create the risks they are supposed to eliminate.
Uncertain about risk
It was hard not be impressed with how this simple chart summarized the course of an astoundingly complex historical event
Systemic risk in consumer finance
At the end of the great credit bubble there was still a tremendous amount of borrowing potential in the hands of consumers. Of the $5 trillion in US credit card lines outstanding only $800 billion was reportedly in use. So in the spring of 2009, with unemployment and bankruptcy on the rise, the card companies ...
Systems at Risk as Risk to the System
Systemic risk in finance refers to at least three things, according to George G. Kaufman and Kenneth E. Scott: It connotes a macro shock that produces nearly simultaneous, large, adverse effects in most or all of the domestic economy or even international financial system. It can also refer to the risk of a chain reaction ...
The ‘Becoming’ Insurable of Terrorism Risk in the US: Imagining Systemic Risk
Philip Bougen explores terrorism risks and making the unthinkable insurable.
Running Amok in Labyrinthine Systems: The Cyber-Behaviorist Origins of Soft Torture
Rebecca Lemov explores the systematizing and regularizing of an American brand of torture.
Introduction: Systemic Risk
Stephen J. Collier and Andrew Lakoff introduce the concept of "systemic risk" and the focus of Limn Number 1.