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Crisis, what crisis? Comparative research into hard policy problemsInternational Relations (SPS-RESCH-CRI-23)

SPS-RESCH-CRI-23

Purpose

During the first quarter of the 21^st century, serious crises came to affect rich liberal democracies. For the first time in the post-World War II era, the banking system of the North Atlantic economies came close to collapse, causing a Great Recession. The vulnerability of European integration was exposed in the sovereign debt phase of that crisis in which the European common currency area was close to implode in 2012 and caused severe hardship in countries that needed a bailout. When Europe was finally on the way to recovery, the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. The economic disruption of addressing the public health crisis had a surge in the cost-of-living in its wake that threatened the food security even in wealthy countries. This was exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a war that has upended principles of the geopolitical order. In the background of these more punctuated crises episodes, there are the ‘slow’ burning, erosion-type crises of rising inequality, demographic ageing and irreversible global warming. This cumulation of seemingly never ending emergencies challenge the resilience of liberal democracies, both in terms of tabling effective policy solutions, and – no less important – in terms of mustering democratic legitimacy for institutional reforms with a long-term horizon.

This seminar offers a comprehensive introduction into comparative crisis research in rich liberal democracies. The aim is to introduce researchers to the state of the art in crisis research. When and how does a hard policy problem become a crisis? Is the crisis politics determined by particular features of a crisis, notably how common or country-specific, exogenous or endogenous to the reference system a crisis appears to be? Or is crisis politics determined by the policy capacities available and whether they can be deployed in the collective interest? Can crises be managed or are they largely contained by multi-functional, robust institutions?  We answer such questions with respect to the political response dynamics of both ‘fast’ burning crises, such as the 2008-2009 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, and of ‘slow’ burning crises, such as population ageing and climate change. The course aims to provide researchers with advanced knowledge about crisis politics and policies across countries and the European Union (EU). Register for this course