Why has crisis become so prevalent in governing? A common answer is that there has been an acceleration and an accumulation of the number of crises, their recurrence, and their length. Rather than punctual events that induced a deviation from standard life, crises now appear as the norm – we are living in an age of turbulence, crises (even polycrisis say some), disruptions, or catastrophes. Climate change, debt, inflation, pandemics, heatwaves, but also crisis in politics with the rise of populism, polarisation or the disruption of multilateralism are some of the defining features of a world in crisis
Relatedly, the proliferation of crises has also transformed governance expectations. Governance has to be resilient and face turbulences and the unexpected. Leaders must expect chaos and focus on communicating their ability to govern through crises. They navigate from one crisis to the other, rather than they steer a political agenda.
Yet, why has crisis become so pervasive and permeated governance? And what does this mean for governance?
Rather than looking at crises per se, Lydie Cabane argues that we should look at crisis governance as a site to understand governing in today’s disrupted world. At the same time as crises spread around our daily lives, so have crisis expertise, plans, policies, and organisations proliferated. How can we understand the spread of crisis governance? What does it do to governance and bureaucracies? Reversely, what does governing do to ‘crises’? The talk will explore these questions through a series of cases, and think through their implications for governing today.
SPEAKER
Lydie Cabane is an Assistant Professor in Governance of Crises at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, with an interdisciplinary background in sociology and political science. Her research aims to explain the wide diffusion of crisis management in a variety of domains worldwide and to contribute to an analysis of states' transformations, governance, regulation and public policy.
DISCUSSANT
Julie Billaud, Associate Professor, Anthropology and Sociology, Geneva Graduate Institute.
MODERATOR
Lucile Maertens, Associate Professor, International Relations and Political Science, and Co-Director, the Global Governance Centre, Geneva Graduate Institute.
Banner photo by Jan Mallander on Pixabay