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Managing Complex Crises

The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership under Pressure, by Boin et al., marks the end of a significant cycle of research conducted over the past decade. Summarizing and integrating the findings of numerous individual cases from Europe and beyond, the book provides a general theory of crisis management that is thoroughly supported by extensive empirical evidence.

Recent research on crisis management has focused on individual crises, triggered by such things as natural disasters, epidemics, technological failures, human mistakes, political conflicts, terrorist attacks, and the like. These crises were predominantly investigated through a cognitive-institutional approach that stresses such analytical themes as crisis preparedness, prevention and mitigation, leadership, decision units, problem perception and framing, value conflict, politico-bureaucratic cooperation and conflict, crisis communication and credibility, transnationalization and internationalization, temporal effects, and learning. Several of the studies, conducted as part of the Crisis Management Europe project, followed a common research design-including a common theoretical starting point and methodological approach (see, for example, Newlove, Stern, and Svedin 2000; Porfiriev and Svedin 2002; Bos 2003; Hansen 2003; Brändström and Malesic 2004). Case-by-case and country-by-country, the reports generated by these studies have thoroughly assessed crisis management in particular institutional contexts. However, they have not attempted to provide a systematic set of generalizations based on the various findings. The only real attempt to generalize from these rich empirical data-Managing Crises: Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities by Rosenthal, Boin, and Comfort-appeared in 2001. However, that volume was limited by the number of studies available at the time and by the book's lack of a common theoretical and methodological approach.

The Politics of Crisis Management goes well beyond the scope of the Rosenthal et al. volume. This book reflects, first and foremost, the multidisciplinary nature of crisis management, involving disaster sociology and psychology, international relations, public administration, public policy, and organizational theory. Moreover, the book provides a thorough analysis of such issues as the basic leadership challenges in crisis management, the perception and framing of crisis, the decision-making process during crises, crisis communication, the political closing of crisis, and the organizational learning process that should follow every crisis. Last but not least, Boin et al. offer well elaborated and illustrated lessons to guide policymakers who want to provide prudent and effective leadership during crises. In short, the monograph is very successful in building theory across different scientific disciplines and reflecting on effective policy in a large number of crises.

The Politics of Crisis Management is divided into seven chapters, each of which addresses a salient issue of public leadership in crisis management. Specifically, the book defines crisis and crisis management and explores the phenomenon of crisis leadership. It investigates how public leaders deal with the crucial and increasingly relevant task of governance in contemporary countries, and it identifies challenges and pitfalls that societies confront when managing crises. Finally, it discusses the key leadership missions in crisis situations.

In Chapter 1, Boin et al. define crisis, identifying its key components: threat to important values, norms, and structures of society; uncertainty; and urgency. Although the definition used has appeared in past analyses, the authors thoroughly analyze the components of crisis and illustrate them with recent cases. By its very nature, the concept of crisis is extremely broad. It encompasses everything from hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes through environmental and technical disasters, terrorist attacks, and political conflicts to sabotage aimed at information technology and the infrastructure of postmodern societies.

Chapter 2 discusses the problem of recognizing and responding appropriately to crises as they unfold. According to Boin et al., crises will continue to challenge leaders for one simple reason: the disruptions that cause crises cannot be prevented. Crises are not due to bad luck or God's punishment. Linear thinking that "big events must have big causes" should give way to a more subtle perspective that stresses the unintended consequences of increased complexity. Crisis is the result of multiple interacting causes. Rejecting the traditional logic that looks for the internal and external triggers of crisis, the authors offer an extremely provocative thesis that we should primarily focus on the escalatory processes that undermine a social system's capacity to cope with disturbances. Given the wide variety of agents that can lead to such disturbances, the underlying cause of crisis really lies in the inability of a system to deal with the disturbances. Thus, the causes of crisis are seen as residing within the system that should cope with it! Boin et al. believe that nonlinear dynamics and complexity make crises difficult to detect. Several of the cases are chosen precisely because they demonstrate the inability of leaders to identify some of the most notorious crises of our era in a timely manner.

In crisis situations, affected citizens expect governments and public agencies to make sense of what is going on and to protect them from real or perceived threats. However unrealistic these expectations may be, whether they are fulfilled or not has real political consequences, and leaders always seek to meet them. Boin et al. define leadership "as a set of strategic tasks that encompasses all activities associated with the stages of crisis management" (p. 9). In their analysis, they concentrate on leaders who hold high offices and strategic positions-ranging from presidents, prime ministers, and cabinet ministers to senior civil servants and public managers.

Chapter 3 analyzes the next crucial leadership task: decision making. When a crisis becomes manifest, leaders must make decisions about how to deal with its consequences. Crises leave governments and public agencies with pressing issues to address. They must deal with problems despite the obvious disparities between the demand for and supply of public resources, an unclear and volatile situation, and the lack of time to think, consult, and make decisions. Moreover, the measures they decide to take may be far different from those taken in everyday decision making. Crisis situations may require the deployment of the military, the use of force, evacuations of people, restrictions on human and civil rights, and so on. Recent examples have revealed that crisis decision making is tough and involves both key value tradeoffs and political risks. One of the key features of successful crisis decision making is that it involves an extraordinary level of interagency, intergovernmental, and intergroup coordination to prevent miscommunication and overlapping activities and to avoid value or organizational conflicts between state, private, and nongovernmental actors. The level of coordination required can be especially difficult if national and international crisis management agencies are involved concurrently. Efficient response to crisis is dependent not only merely on crucial leadership decisions but also on the institutional context in which the decisions are made and implemented.

Chapter 4 focuses on an analysis of "meaning making." Crisis induces an acute need for political leaders to make sense of the situation. Citizens want to know what is going on. Timely and detailed information, or the lack of it, will determine popular perceptions of the crisis. Yet, meaning making is affected by the partial reports, rumors, graphic pictures, and personal experiences that come together to frame people's perception of the crisis. Lack of information will produce uncertainty and fear among the affected population, and leaders are expected to reduce that uncertainty and provide a clear picture of the unfolding events. Leadership that is, and leaders who are, credible to the public can improve the decision-making climate and ease the decision-making process itself. However, to be effective, leaders need to communicate continuously with the affected public.

In Chapter 5, Boin et al. deal with the termination of crisis situations, taking into account that, at least in democratic societies, crises cannot last forever. A sense of normalcy must, sooner or later, return to the society. Crisis termination has two crucial dimensions. First, leaders must orchestrate a shift from emergency status back to routine life. Second, leaders must render an account of what has happened and gain acceptance of this account. A process of re-legitimization needs to take place if leaders are to return to their usual functions. As a result, the crisis termination process should neither be delayed nor be undertaken prematurely, and it must be underpinned with clear political accountability. However, leaders are never in a position to completely control their political fate or direct the evolution of the crisis as a whole. This lack of control is particularly acute during the termination phase.

Chapter 6 explores the learning process in crisis management in terms of the political and organizational lessons that can be learned. Each and every crisis offers a vast reservoir of experiences and lessons for future crisis planning and training. A fair expectation is that those involved in crisis management will draw lessons from past events and translate them into organizational practices, policies, and laws. Yet, Boin et al. find that the effort to draw lessons from crises is one of the most underdeveloped aspects of crisis management. Along with cognitive and institutional barriers to learning and change, lesson drawing is constrained politically by the impact that these lessons might have on a society. Simply put, lessons learned might easily reveal deficiencies in crisis prevention, preparedness, and response, which are matters that are not pleasant for incumbent leaders to contemplate.

Chapter 7 moves from the theoretical, analytical, and descriptive discourses that are characteristic of previous chapters to a prescriptive mode. This problem solving approach represents the added value of the book compared with much of the past literature. It will be highly appreciated not only by scholars who are keen to see theoretical assumptions empirically tested and translated into practical advice, but also by practitioners who deal with complex crises on an almost daily basis.

The Politics of Crisis Management can be recommended to faculty who teach courses on crisis management, to social science researchers who are looking for a theoretical basis for future research on crisis management, to graduate and postgraduate students in the variety of fields concerned with crisis, and to practitioners and especially political leaders who deal with crises of various kinds. Practitioners in particular will find that parts of the book can serve as a useful manual, guiding their efforts to cope effectively with future crises. At the same time, they will find a moral call to improve and learn from the past. The Politics of Crisis Management is a strong and perceptive book that is well worth reading and thinking about.

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