Suchergebnisse

This document presents the theoretical framework that constitutes the foundation of the TransCrisis project. It sketches the causal relations between our core concepts: political leaders, political leadership, TBCs, and (institutional capacities for) crisis management. We will build on this theoretical framework to design a codebook for empirical research. The purpose of the framework and the accompanying codebook is to ensure a shared understanding of what constitutes TBC management. Use of the codebook and consistent terminology will enable the integration of results from the research-based WPs. This document is structured as follows:  First, it explains the nature and dynamics of TBCs;  Second, it conceptualizes TBC management;  Third, it explains how political leadership can facilitate and enable TBC management that is both effective and legitimate;  Fourth, it depicts the key variables in this research project;  Fifth, it presents an outline of individual research-based WPs as well as where exactly they fit into the framework of the project.

The Horizon 2020 TransCrisis project has studied the EU's capacities to deal with transboundary crises and how these capacities are related to Member State capacities and their governance arrangements.1 We found that the European Union (EU) has many capacities of different types (plans, alert systems, regulations, ad hoc systems) that can be employed to organise a response against transboundary crises. But these capacities are scattered across institutions and agencies, their use is not always clearly defined, and their performance is uneven at best. We argue that these capacities and their governance arrangements should be strengthened, and urgently so. We also offer a set of recommendations to decision-makers at both the EU and the member-state level to enhance these capacities. This document should be read as an addendum to our White Paper, which laid the groundwork for this prescriptive effort.2 Both the White Paper and these recommendations for the world of practice are motivated by one overriding concern: the prospect of more, and more serious, crises that threaten the wellbeing of European citizens and undermine the legitimacy of its institutions. In light of these developments, we offer practical suggestions for enhancing particular processes, mechanisms and organisations to deal with a variety of transboundary threats. Our suggestions come, by necessity, in the form of a menu: certain courses fit certain appetites. It is for the practitioner to assess what the best match between threat and prescription is.

AbstractThe nation state is discovering the limits of its crisis management capacities. The Ebola and Zika outbreaks, the financial crisis, the downing of flight MH17 over Ukraine, sinking ships overfilled with refugees, cyber-attacks, urban terrorism and existential environmental threats serve as strong reminders of the complex origins and transboundary dimensions of many contemporary crises and disasters. As these transboundary aspects of modern crises become increasingly manifest, the need for international, collaborative responses appears ever clearer. But that collaboration does not always emerge in time (or at all). Even in the European Union, which has various transboundary crisis management mechanisms in place, the willingness to initiate joint crisis responses varies. This observation prompted our research question: Why do states collaborate in response to some transboundary crises but not others? We bring together the crisis and collective action literatures to formulate a theoretical framework that can help answer this question. This article identifies crucial factors that facilitate a possible pathway toward a joint response.

Modern societies rely on complex technological systems that are deeply intertwined with other complex systems that stretch across geographical, judicial and administrative borders. When threats emanate from this transboundary space, national governments are often surprised and discover that existing crisis management arrangements do not suffice. This article describes the political and administrative challenges that accompany transboundary crises. It argues that arrangements and processes that work reasonably well for "bounded" crises are unlikely to work in the case of transboundary crises. It formulates an agenda for political debate and academic research. The bottom line is that we need to rethink traditional crisis management arrangements in order to prepare for these increasingly common type of threats.

AbstractEU agencies have emerged as entities offering technical coordination to member states and support to the European Commission in different policy areas. Their expertise may play a role in responding to unexpected crises. Against this backdrop, we examine under which circumstances EU agencies, through their specialized expertise, are involved in transboundary crisis responses, and when they acquire a leading position in coordinating those responses. To do so, we study four agencies which faced crises: the EBA and the 2012 banking crisis; the ECDC and the 2014 Ebola outbreak; EFSA and the 2011 E. coli outbreak; and Frontex and the 2015 refugee crisis. Our findings discuss to what extent agencies' involvement in transboundary crises is related to functional (sector characteristics) and institutional (delegation of authority) variables. We also identify that under certain political conditions EU agencies' coordination capacity is activated, allowing them to emerge as leading institutions in transboundary crisis resolution.

Modern societies rely on complex technological systems that are deeply intertwined with other complex systems that stretch across geographical, judicial and administrative borders. When threats emanate from this transboundary space, national governments are often surprised and discover that existing crisis management arrangements do not suffice. This article describes the political and administrative challenges that accompany transboundary crises. It argues that arrangements and processes that work reasonably well for "bounded" crises are unlikely to work in the case of transboundary crises. It formulates an agenda for political debate and academic research. The bottom line is that we need to rethink traditional crisis management arrangements in order to prepare for these increasingly common type of threats.

AbstractThis paper discusses the intricacies of external transboundary crises, namely those cross‐border threats whose management requires coordination among EU and non‐EU countries. Specifically, it explores the extent to which European integration theories shed light on the coordination of external transboundary crisis responses by assessing the weight and role of the actor constellations involved in the civil aviation response to the 2010 Icelandic ash cloud crisis. The use of social network analysis as a methodological tool generates novel empirical evidence on the configuration of crisis management structures. The analysis shows that many EU Member States led decision‐making, whereas supranational organizations were instrumental in the coordination of the ash cloud crisis response. The centrality of these bodies contrasts with the peripheral position of most interest groups. This paper also suggests that external transboundary crises present complex management dynamics that distinguish them from generic transboundary threats. For example, the response to the ash cloud crisis was not commanded by the European Economic Area/European Free Trade Association countries where its epicentre was located. The empirical analysis was based on information extracted from a survey to experts involved in the management of this episode, as well as from ten semi‐structured elite interviews.

Crises and disasters feature high on political and public agendas around the world. Practitioners wrestle with the challenge to provide protection while maintaining legitimacy. They pine for insights that lie at the heart of public administration: designing effective institutions and preserving transparency; enabling and empowering citizens without undermining a coordinated response; balancing long‐term risks against short‐term needs; bridging the divide between theory and practice, and between the public and private sectors. But in the debates about designing institutions that protect against transboundary threats and critical infrastructure failures, the public administration community is strangely absent. It has parked itself on the sideline, concerning itself with the routine processes of governance. In this article, we argue that the time has come for public administration scholars to incorporate crisis and disaster management into the main research agendas of the field.

The European Union has experienced a series of transboundary crises that have tested its capacity and legitimacy. The financial and refugee crises have highlighted the political and administrative limits to existing EU crisis management arrangements. In particular, they have strained understandings of member state solidarity, and they have given rise to conflicts over the direction of future EU transboundary crisis management capacities within and across policy domains. To develop enhanced transboundary crisis management capacity and legitimacy, it is essential to understand the different types of crises that have affected the European Union - ranging from 'traditional' emergencies, such as terrorist attacks or natural disasters, to the consequences of enhanced market liberalisation and integration, such as the banking crisis or the dramatic levels of youth unemployment, and the explicit rejection by member states of key liberal democratic constitutional commitments, namely 'backsliding'. In addition, the context of the new normal of re-nationalised electoral politics, the challenge of coordinating highly dispersed systems of multi-level governance, and the tension of dealing with (often incompatible) short- and long-term objectives also shape EU transboundary crisis management. This White Paper identifies four deficits in contemporary transboundary crisis management: deficits in central authority, in prescriptiveness, in subsidiarity, and in flexibility. These deficits point to the contested nature of debates over future transboundary crisis management in the EU and its member states. This White Paper identifies four different approaches towards enhancing capacity and legitimacy: i) a reliance on 'ad hoc' responses, ii) a strengthening of EU-level capacity; iii) a strengthening of multi-level governance; and iv) a strengthening of consistency of member state policies. Each of these approaches is associated with distinct advantages and pathologies.

This workshop was held as a follow-up to the written reports delivered as part of Work Package 6, on Political leadership, national politics and transboundary crisis management. It was designed to present the results of case studies on each of these three topics to practitioners in the field, both in terms of whether backsliding is the result of transboundary crises and whether it might in itself lead to or constitute a crisis for the EU; and to seek feedback and advice from said practitioners on how best to develop further research on the topic. The workshop reported on the three main tasks of Work Package 6: analysis of backsliding in the EU (both in terms of democracy and the acquis communautaire); analysis of the reasons for backsliding (including the extent to which it constitutes a response to transboundary crisis management in general and the financial crisis in particular); and assessment of the (crisis management) capacity of EU leaders to address the issue of backsliding and explore policy options. The discussion was designed to set the stage for and to inform the final work on dissemination under the TransCrisis programme, as well as the follow-up work that members of the TransCrisis team will do after the conclusion of the project. In order to secure an open, frank and informal exchange of ideas, the workshop was designed as a small gathering of expert practitioners in the field. The discussions were conducted under the Chatham House Rule1, and consequently this report summarises the main points raised in the discussion without attributing them to individual participants – be it the TransCrisis team or the practitioners.

The changing nature of crisis and an increased expectancy of pandemics sets the stage for many challenging crisis' in the future. Modernization and inequalities of a divided world also play a big role in this future, while organizational factors often are the ones being solely blamed for inadequate crisis management. A knowledge gap in combining crisis management literature with pandemic and epidemic response further complicates the ability to plausible predict how health crisis unfold and should be managed. The main purpose of this thesis is to explore, illustrate and seek a deeper understanding of pandemics through the lenses of crisis management. These lenses will tell the story of modernization, interconnectedness, governance, inequity, health systems, pig, bats, crisis management and an international harvester of blood. The thesis has been carried out through a comparative case study of H1N1 influenza in Norway and the Ebola outbreak in Western Africa. Reports by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, external management assessors and some news sources have been analyzed though a theoretical framework on transboundary crisis. Main findings include heavy reliance on the health sector, the World Health Organization as custodians of a crisis, international travel, deforestation, migration, land use, poverty and poor health systems create and facilitate pandemics, and solving a pandemic is in reality the solving of an epidemic in the diseased country. Furthermore, mechanisms for disease propagation, such as "deliberate uncertainty-making", challenges in mobilizing people, money and goods, stigma associated with being the host country of a disease, lack of awareness of the different international frameworks between the health and humanitarian sectors and the failure to establish an authoritative narrative in communicating disease, have been identified. The fact that it only takes one infected child to almost force governments on their knees, launching national and international actions to combat an infectious disease, serves as a dire reminder of the importance in incorporating crisis management literature with pandemic and epidemic response.

AbstractBoin (2019) argues that in transboundary crisis management it is almost impossible to achieve centralization and coordination. This article identifies three principles through which actors in a transboundary crisis can balance centralization with autonomy while shaping coordination along the way. We reanalysed three transboundary cases: the Dutch military mission in Afghanistan, the downing of MH17 and hurricane Irma striking Sint‐Maarten. The principles we found are as follows: (a) reformulating key strategic priorities, (b) flexible adaptation of crisis management protocols and (c) the emergence of multifunctional units. With these three principles, we reflect on challenges in the Dutch crisis response to the corona outbreak and propose improvements for progressing current crisis management efforts.

The Transcrisis project has mapped capacities for transboundary crisis management that exist both at the national and the EU level.1 In this paper (Deliverable D7.1), we introduce an assessment tool that helps to quickly analyse whether and to which extent a particular organization or policy sector is ready to face a transboundary crisis. It is a survey tool that facilitates an evidence-based assessment of transboundary crisis management capacities. This tool can be used for the structural assessment and benchmarking of the EU's crisis management capital. The tool can thus be seen as a way to create input for a dashboard. This dashboard offers indicators as to the transboundary crisis management capital in order to allow for an assessment of capacities of multiple organizations and assess their strength.2 This tool is intended to serve different users. It offers officials in EU, national and subnational institutions a tool to assess what capacities exist and where (at the EU-level and elsewhere). The tool is also useful to external observers, such as academics, think tanks and media representatives, who seek to gauge whether an organization or policy sector is prepared to deal with a transboundary crisis. The tool offers an efficient way to arrive at a fair assessment of crisis management capacities (both retrospectively and prospectively). The tool is based on the method for the structured assessment of transboundary crisis management capacities that we outlined in the Codebook. The tool can be used to assess individual organizations or policy sectors. In the EU, crisis management is rarely a matter of one particular organization. Our case studies show that a transboundary crisis is usually managed by a network of EU organizations (agencies, Commission DGs, Council) and member states as well as (private sector) providers. As the capacities of both organizations and sector can be assessed, the tool in effect allows for the assessment of a response network.