TY - JOUR
T1 - One crisis is not like another
T2 - exploring different shades of crisis in the EU
AU - Hupkens, Jan
AU - Neuhold, Christine
AU - Vanhoonacker, Sophie
N1 - This article is part of the issue “Governing the EU Polycrisis: Institutional Change After the Pandemic and the War in Ukraine” edited by Edoardo Bressanelli (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies) and David Natali (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies).
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Against the background of more than a decade of crises in the EU and an increasing inflationary use of the term, this article contributes to the crisis literature in two ways. First, by presenting a state of the art of the broader academic research on crises and crisis management, it explores how the more recent EU literature can benefit from this earlier work. At the same time, it also pays attention to the EU specificities and the implications in terms of research, especially with regard to studying actors and perceived threats. Here the unpacking of the well-established crisis definition of Rosenthal et al. (2001) serves as a helpful starting point. Second, the contribution argues that one crisis is not like another and that crises can take different gradations. By distinguishing between mild, severe and existential crises, it makes a first attempt to propose the key analytical dimensions that impact the gradation of a crisis. Building on the findings in EU crisis research, it distils the dimensions of severity, symmetry and speed as defining characteristics. Depending on the crisis, the gradation of each of these dimensions ranges along a spectrum. In other words, there are different shades of crises. By being more explicit about the gradation, scholars can identify what type of crisis is at stake (i.e., whether the crisis under study is mild, severe or existential in nature). This in turn has implications for questions such as by whom, how and when a crisis needs to be addressed. As a final step, the article also identifies a series of avenues for further research.
AB - Against the background of more than a decade of crises in the EU and an increasing inflationary use of the term, this article contributes to the crisis literature in two ways. First, by presenting a state of the art of the broader academic research on crises and crisis management, it explores how the more recent EU literature can benefit from this earlier work. At the same time, it also pays attention to the EU specificities and the implications in terms of research, especially with regard to studying actors and perceived threats. Here the unpacking of the well-established crisis definition of Rosenthal et al. (2001) serves as a helpful starting point. Second, the contribution argues that one crisis is not like another and that crises can take different gradations. By distinguishing between mild, severe and existential crises, it makes a first attempt to propose the key analytical dimensions that impact the gradation of a crisis. Building on the findings in EU crisis research, it distils the dimensions of severity, symmetry and speed as defining characteristics. Depending on the crisis, the gradation of each of these dimensions ranges along a spectrum. In other words, there are different shades of crises. By being more explicit about the gradation, scholars can identify what type of crisis is at stake (i.e., whether the crisis under study is mild, severe or existential in nature). This in turn has implications for questions such as by whom, how and when a crisis needs to be addressed. As a final step, the article also identifies a series of avenues for further research.
KW - EU, crisis, crisis management, gradations of crisis, multi-level governance
U2 - 10.17645/pag.v11i4.7349
DO - 10.17645/pag.v11i4.7349
M3 - Article
SN - 2183-2463
VL - 11
SP - 252
EP - 262
JO - Politics and Governance
JF - Politics and Governance
IS - 4
ER -