Governing by Looking Back: Historical Analogies and Crisis Management

In: Public administration: an international quarterly, Band 82, Heft 1, S. 191-210

Abstract

This article offers a conceptual framework that broadens & enhances our understanding of the role of "history" in contemporary governance & the attempts by policy-makers to "manage" critical issues. Building upon the literature on historical analogies in policy-making, we distinguish three dimensions that clarify how the past may emerge in & affect the current deliberations, choices, & rhetoric of policy-makers. We apply this in a comparative examination of two cases of crisis management where historical analogies played an important part: the Swedish response to (alleged) submarine intrusions in 1982, & the European Union sanctions against Austria in 1999. We induce from the case comparison new concepts & hypotheses for understanding the role of historical analogies in public policy-making & crisis management. 1 Table, 61 References. Adapted from the source document.