The political economy of infrastructure failure

Renewable energy infrastructure is depicted as both essential to human life and a solution to the ecological crisis. Derisking – the removal of risks and the guarantee of returns to encourage private investment in green infrastructure – has been placed at the centre of environmental transition. In this article, we ask: what does failure mean for a derisked infrastructure project and, conversely, what does derisking mean for infrastructure failure? Drawing on the analysis of a failed hydropower project in Georgia, we argue that derisking prefigures and simultaneously exploits infrastructure failure. The deeply imbalanced distribution of risks and returns between the state and investors reduces the latter's motivation to ensure project viability. The extractivist character of derisked renewable infrastructure projects leads local social movements to conclude that the sooner a project fails, the less devastation and extraction it will cause. This makes cancelling such projects into an important political goal for these movements. Importantly, derisking enables investors to extract value even from cancelled infrastructure projects. We contribute to existing knowledge on derisking and renewable infrastructures by showing that not only accomplished infrastructure projects, but even the cancelled ones can engender extractivist dynamics by enabling investors to exploit project failure.

Why has China’s infrastructure construction succeeded domestically but often faced varying degrees of failure abroad? Existing scholarship emphasizes local politics, highlighting a variety of endemic yet competitive factors behind these failures. Contributing to the growing BRI literature, this study develops a more general framework of sociopolitical regime, composed of elite legitimization, inter-elite relations and elite-mass relations, to explain the varieties of infrastructure failure. Specifically, ruling elites emphasizing performance-based legitimacy in a cohesive state characterized by elite collaboration and social compliance generate the lowest likelihood of infrastructure failure. At the other extreme, governing elites attaching greater importance to identity-based legitimacy in a fragmented state characterized by elite contestation and social resistance are most conducive to infrastructure failure. Between the two extremes lie a range of intermediate regimes that are associated with varying likelihood of infrastructure failure. The article tests the theoretical propositions by studying China’s major railway projects in Southeast Asia. Based on first-hand interview data from 2018 to 2024 and second-hand available information in databases and other publications, the comparative case studies largely confirm the causal relationship between sociopolitical regime and infrastructure failure. This research on railway infrastructure failure offers policy insights for China’s infrastructure investment and construction overseas.

Ocean environment is generally dynamic in nature with rise and fall of tides, density driven current and surface waves. The interface where the ocean meets the lands mass is broadly termed as the coast and the physical transition between the land and sea is the shoreline. The shoreline is subjected to continuous changes with wave actions and which in turn causing the littoral drift. [1] The coast is influenced with various anthropogenic activities and development project like ports & harbour development, construction of jetties, laying of intake and outfall pipeline for desalination plants & power plants etc. Any unplanned execution of work in this dynamic environment will leads to shoreline erosion loss of available land. Unlike conducting terrain survey on land, conducting hydrographical survey or oceanographic investigations need detailed understanding of the environment with associated sea state. Collection of oceanographic data plays a vital role in design and development of any infrastructural project along the coast. It has often been observed that design based on insufficient data result in infrastructure failure which often leads to difficulties during the construction and operation stages of the infrastructure. Typical examples are damage to groyne structures due to monsoon waves, siltation of ports & harbours leading to expensive dredging. Hence, the importance of field studies is very crucial in capturing the inputs and data required for proper design. One must thoroughly study the dynamic of waves, tides, currents, seabed stratification, seafloor classification and more importantly the nearshore bathymetry for understanding the dynamic coastal environment. It can be achieved by adopting sophisticated instruments like echosounders for measuring depth, acoustic based devices like seismic for seabed studies and sidescan to capture seafloor image operating with certain frequencies, tide recorder and current meter to record the time series variations of tides and currents in any coastal region [2]. Very few organizations in India have the capability to plan and execute such marine related studies. Among them the leading institutions to name a few are Ocean Engineering Department of IIT Madras, CWPRS-Pune, NIO-Goa, NIOT and NCCR-Chennai. Organizations like Indomer who have been in this field for the past 23 years have matched such infrastructure and have been able to navigate the requirements of conducting studies in the east and west coast of India. Coastal infrastructures projects are also subjected to catastrophic events like tsunami, cyclone, and storm surges etc. It is imperative that such effects can be predicted through modelling studies. The data collected from field studies are in turn used to calibrate numerical model and further scenarios are then simulated using established numerical modelling tools to understand these events. It is now possible to simulate conditions for tide, current, sediment transport, oil spill, shoreline changes etc. through modelling suites such as MIKE21, Delft3D, SWAN etc. [3]. This approach of conducting field studies supplemented with mathematical modelling will help design coastal infrastructure in a safe efficient and cost-effective manner. This paper describes in detail the various field surveys, field equipments, methodology adopted, and typical mathematical modelling studies carried out for coastal infrastructure project with Indian perspective in mind.

The 2016 Mw7.8 Pedernales earthquake caused extensive damage along the central Ecuadorian coastline, resulting in 661 casualties, 4859 injured and the collapse of numerous buildings. The city of Portoviejo (Ecuador), located 140 km from the epicenter, was one of the most severely impacted municipalities with approximately 10% of its buildings damaged and 40 reinforced concrete buildings in the city center collapsed. A seismic microzonation study was conducted in Portoviejo to better understand the damage distribution and guide reconstruction efforts and future engineering projects. Based on a seismic hazard assessment and through equivalent linear analyses of multiple soil profiles integrating geological, geotechnical, and geophysical investigations, the study revealed that local conditions significantly influenced seismic ground motion. Specifically, the low Vs30 values, in the valley generally between 225 and 180 m/s, and even lower in some areas, played a critical role. Additionally, these conditions, associated with fluviomarine sandy deposits, contributed to induced effects such as soil liquefaction, which was a key factor in structural damage and infrastructure failure. These findings were used as primary criteria for delineating seismic microzones in the flat areas of the valley. The technical results of the seismic microzonation study, including response spectra for seismic microzones and soil liquefaction potential assessment, have been incorporated into municipal codes. While landslide hazard in Portoviejo is generally low, the risk could increase under extreme events. This integration has enhanced the city’s understanding of its natural environment and contributed to seismic risk mitigation efforts introducing site-specific parameters in the local building code.

Investment in transport infrastructure has been a key driver of Turkish economic growth over recent decades. The market has expanded considerably in relation to the state, with the transfer of public goods and services to the private sector and thereby the creation of new spaces of accumulation. This paper engages critical political economy to the analysis of infrastructure failures, assessing transport infrastructures during the massive 2023 earthquakes in Turkey, with reference to public private partnerships (PPP) and public procurement processes. It focuses on three representative cases from the airway, highway and railway sectors to offer insights to connections between the changes in the public procurement policies over time, restructuring of the state-market relations and the impact of this restructuring on infrastructure failures during construction and reconstruction phases. Based on a comprehensive historical empirical inquiry, the paper argues that the infrastructure failures during the earthquakes were driven by: (i) neoliberal market mechanisms of cost- and time-efficiency in prioritising infrastructure investments for development; (ii) new developmentalist goals prevailing the neoliberal principles of transparency, fair competition and impartiality in public procurement processes and (iii) economic patriotism overruling environmental, geotechnical and economic feasibility in projects.

Despite decades of substantial investment in electricity infrastructure, Angola faces a striking paradox: widespread electricity poverty coexists with significant overcapacity in power generation. By the end of its 2007–2025 development strategy, national electrification had increased only modestly – from 34 per cent to 42 per cent – despite rapid economic growth driven by oil revenues and heavy public investment in energy production. Today, Angola has an installed generation capacity of approximately 6.2 GW, of which only about two-thirds is utilised, while more than half of the population remains without access to electricity due to severe deficits in transmission and distribution infrastructure. This article investigates Angola’s electricity sector reform since the early 2000s, focusing on the construction of the Laúca and Caculo Cabaça hydropower dams as emblematic megaprojects. It asks whether Angola’s energy restructuring can be understood as a case of infrastructure failure and examines how international finance, domestic political settlements, and elite incentives shape infrastructure outcomes. Drawing on a global political economy framework, the paper argues that infrastructure failure in Angola emerges from the convergence of external financial constraints, fragmented principal–agent relations, and elite political incentives reinforced by high-modernist development ideologies.

Recent failures of aging pipeline infrastructure have brought increased attention to the current and future capabilities of critical infrastructure. According to the Department of Energy, natural gas lines alone need $19 billion dollars to maintain current capacities and an estimated $42 billion to keep up with future demands. With over a quarter of the nation's pipelines reaching over 50 years old, it is evident that pipeline projects will continue to increase in scope and cost. Front End Planning (FEP) is a critical process for uncovering project unknowns, while developing adequate scope definition, and a structured approach for the project execution process. FEP assists in identifying and mitigating issues such as right-of-way concerns, utility adjustments, environmental hazards, logistic problems, permitting requirements and so on. This paper will outline a novel and effective risk management tool that has been recently developed by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) called the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI) for Infrastructure Projects. Input from industry professionals from over 30 companies was used in the tool development which is specifically focused on FEP. Data from more than 90 projects in seven countries representing project input totaling over $8 billion USD in capital investments will be given showing the efficacy of the tool. Critical success factors for FEP of pipelines and other types of infrastructure projects will be shared, including key planning process steps; guidance for administrators and project professionals will be given.

The raison d'être of natural science is to provide knowledge and to control natural processes. Most economists believe that they should practise economics in the same manner, i.e. accumulate knowledge of the behaviour of men and of the economy that enables the powerful to control other people's behaviour with increasing efficiency. This paper argues that in doing so, economists forget the moral basis of their science and thereby miss the raison d'être of economics. The true purpose of the distinctive ‘science of political economy’ is to design alternative legal structures and to evaluate their potentialities in enhancing efficiency in the exploitation of the mutuality of advantage. This means that the ‘science of political economy’ is categorically distinct from the ‘science of economics’. The former uses the knowledge of behavioural regularities, which the latter may discover, in order to allow the community of free individuals to make informed institutional choices. This approach has, as a necessary prerequisite, a different conception of human nature from that used by the ‘science of economics’, which characterizes human beings as mere net‐wealth maximizing beasts. Such an assumption makes the stability of civil order totally incomprehensible. The ‘science of political economy’ also leads to quite different consequences as to a proper understanding of government and of society. The paper discusses the differences between a morally indifferent ‘science of economics' or behavioural theory, and a morally relevant ‘science of political economy’ and urges social scientists to remember the basic truths of their forefathers, the moral philosophers of the 18th century.

Most economists read more than they write. James Buchanan manages to write more than most economists can read. Because his varied writings on social philosophy and political economy are necessarily scattered among publications around the globe, Buchanan’s latest book, Liberty, Market and State, should prove to be a valuable collection to Buchanan watchers. It brings together his writings under therubric of“constitutional political economy,” or what I prefer to call “constitutional economics.” This book is of significance to the readers of this journal for two fundamental reasons. First, it breaks irrevocably with the conventional wisdom among economists, namely, that economics as a discipline, per Se, has little or nothing to contribute to ourunderstanding ofnormative matter, including justice, fairness, and morality. Economists are able to assume the role of the detached observer-analyst largely because the rules of the market and/or political game are assumed to be given, meaning the distribution ofpower, an intrinsically ethical matter, has already been determined. With matters of power given by assumption, economists are largely free to discuss how people trade to improve their lot. “The predictive ‘science of economics,’” Buchanan writes, “is positively valuable to government agents, business firms, andprivate individuals. Persons can ‘play better games’ if they can predict their opponents’ strategy more accurately” (p. 33). However, the realm of the “science of political economy” has, according to Buchanan, a much different purpose: “to evaluate the structure of the constraints, ‘the law,’ with some ultimate objective of redesign or reform aimed at securing enhanced efficiency in the exploitation of the potential mutuality of alternative systems” (p. 33). ,The science of (constitutional) political economy cannot sidestep normative matters or even the question of how alternative systems of constraints can and should be evaluated. Throughout the book, Buchanan espouses general agreement as the critical normative test for adoptions of social systems or reforms in those systems:

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has delivered uneven outcomes in overseas railway development, in sharp contrast to Beijing’s domestic infrastructure achievements. Why do some Chinese-backed railway projects proceed relatively smoothly while others are delayed, renegotiated, or stalled? This article explains such variation through the concept of sociopolitical regimes, defined by two dimensions of host-country politics: inter-elite cohesion versus contestation and elite-mass compliance versus resistance. Combining these dimensions, the article develops a typological framework that identifies four regime types-consensual, fragmented, contentious, and antagonistic-and links them to the varying likelihood of infrastructure failure. Comparative case studies of major Chinese-backed railway projects in mainland Southeast Asia illustrate how this typology captures distinct pathways of infrastructure failure. Myanmar’s antagonistic regime has generated the highest risk of failure, while Laos’s consensual regime has facilitated the smoothest implementation. Thailand′s fragmented regime and Vietnam′s contentious regime occupy intermediate positions, with project challenges driven respectively by elite contestation and societal resistance. Drawing on fieldwork, interviews, and secondary sources, this article shows how host-country sociopolitical configurations mediate the implementation of transnational infrastructure projects. By conceptualizing infrastructure failure as a graduated and processual condition rather than a binary outcome, this study advances a more nuanced political economy of the BRI and highlights the centrality of state-society relations in shaping cross-border infrastructure development.

Infrastructure Policy and Governance Failures

Visa-se explicar como se daria, segundo Mill, a transformação das 'verdades abstratas' da ciência da economia política - engendradas a partir da utilização da abstração 'homem econômico' - em 'verdades concretas' passíveis de serem utilizadas para previsão dos eventos e como base para a formulação de política econômica. Argumenta-se que seria necessário não só 'humanizar' o 'homem econômico', levando em conta motivações humanas que são propositadamente excluídas pela ciência da economia política, como também considerar peculiaridades institucionais de cada caso. Conclui-se que, apesar do sucesso de Mill em transformar verdades abstratas em concretas, os seus escritos metodológicos são por demais vagos e insuficientes para nos servir de guia nesta importante questão.

This paper explores the problem of ensuring the autonomy and fault tolerance of intelligent control systems used in construction process management under conditions of external risks, such as power outages, loss of network connectivity, or cyber-attacks. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly involved in construction scheduling, monitoring, and resource coordination, there is a pressing need to develop system architecture capable of maintaining critical functionality under infrastructure failures. The main objective of this research is to design and formalize a model of an autonomous AI-driven system that can operate independently from centralized infrastructure and seamlessly transition to fallback control logic when needed. The methodology combines system architecture analysis, the use of UML diagrams (use case, component, and state diagrams) to model functional logic and interactions, risk scenario modeling using failure analysis techniques, and a comparative evaluation of centralized and edge-based computing approaches. The proposed three-layer architecture (physical, computational, and communication) is centered on a local edge server. This server hosts AI modules, handles anomaly detection, power switching, and provides decision-making capacity independently of cloud services. The results demonstrate that the implementation of a hybrid autonomous control system significantly enhances the resilience of construction operations. The edge-based architecture outperforms centralized models in response time, offline operability, and stability in unstable environment. A comparative analysis shows that the deployment of such a system may increase initial costs by 5–10%, yet these costs are justified by a substantial reduction in risk of downtime, delays, and data loss. The proposed system is particularly suitable for construction sites operating in constrained or high-risk conditions, including strategic infrastructure projects or military-affected zones. Future research should focus on optimizing AI algorithms for offline operation, developing industry-wide integration protocols, and validating the proposed model through real-life implementation in pilot projects.

The research scope of the Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Renewal Project R10, Project Management Strategies for Complex Projects, involved the development of this guide, as well as a companion report, surveys, case studies, training, and technical tools, to address the challenges of managing modern infrastructure projects that are considerably more complex than traditional projects. These products facilitate the use of effective strategies in managing complex projects of any size and type. Acceptance and use of this guidance should improve the state of the practice by focusing on practical tools and techniques that are designed to be immediately beneficial to transportation professionals. Infrastructure needs within the United States have changed from building new facilities to replacing, expanding, and renewing existing facilities. The project management issues involved with infrastructure renewal differ from the project management issues for new construction. Correspondingly, new project management approaches must be integrated into mainstream practices for all sizes and types of projects to accelerate project delivery, reduce project costs, and minimize project disputes. The difficulties of renewal project complexity have been exacerbated by years of underfunded maintenance and replacement programs. As a result, many renewal projects have become even more challenging because of the need to avert major traffic disruptions and, in some cases, infrastructure failures. Project complexity is introduced by many factors: project types, engineering complexity, size, modality, jurisdictional control, financing approach, contract type, and delivery method. Each project calls for a distinct project management style and approach. The five-dimensional project management (5DPM) approach for complex projects is not new. However, it is extensively developed, outlined, and clearly mapped for acceptance and integration within the R10 project. The five dimensions are (1) cost, (2) schedule, (3) technical, (4) context, and (5) finance. Successful use of the 5DPM approach involves five methods that are unique for each project: define critical project success factors by each dimension, as required; assemble project team; select project arrangements; prepare early cost model and finance plan; and develop project action plans. Although a number of additional research ideas have been identified during the project, the most pressing next steps are the implementation of the material on actual complex projects and the integration of the philosophy and tools within existing agency program and project management policies and procedures. The integration will be accomplished through demonstration projects, training, and change-management assistance.

The unprecedented 2021 Heat Dome caused wide-ranging and long-lasting impacts in western Canada, including 619 confirmed heat-related deaths in British Columbia, a doubling of emergency medical calls, increased hospitalisations, infrastructure failures and stress on plants and animals. However, such varied socio-economic consequences of extreme heat can be challenging to capture using a single post-event analysis method. Therefore, there is a need to explore alternative approaches and data sources. Using the 2021 Heat Dome as a case study, a post-event analysis using online news media articles (n = 2909) from 5 subscription news databases and a grey literature search was conducted to identify the socio-economic impacts of the extreme heat event in Canada. The articles reported a wide range of effects to the natural environment (n = 1366), social infrastructure and services (n = 1121), human health (n = 1074), critical infrastructure (n = 988) and the private sector (n = 165). The media-based post-event analysis captured various impacts, some of which have not been identified through other data sources and approaches. Overall, we show that media analysis can complement traditional post-event analysis methods and provide additional perspectives to governments and public health and safety officials.