Suchergebnisse

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.

Abstract
The coronavirus crisis has negated the widely held post-Cold War narrative that the rise of non-state actors like non-governmental organizations, social movements and firms would end up supplanting states as the main actors on the international stage. States were the first responders to emerging health-related transboundary crises before the great strides of the 19th and 20th centuries to institutionalize health cooperation. Two decades into the 21st century, the world and state-level pandemics preparedness were exposed. The pandemic wreaked havoc on all states, notwithstanding their military and economic capabilities. It surpassed power asymmetries prevailing in the community of states. Among the many purposes of International Relations (IR) theories, include an attempt to explain and predict patterns of national behaviours or understand the world "inside the heads" of actors. What, then, can we learn from IR theories about the need for states to cooperate, and why was such cooperation not forthcoming, especially during the initial phases of the outbreak? Why was the initial global response so shambolic and largely inward-looking and uncoordinated? To answer these questions, the article draws insights from various IR theoretical strands and the ensuing structural, state and individual-level explanations of various actors' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

Boin (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.

This article introduces three historical situations where governments, or more accu- rately, specific leaders in office, shaped the international context in dealing with a transboundary crisis—and were in turn crucially affected in their reign by this crisis. The question at stake is: under what conditions did leaders (and their governments) engage in international cooperation to deal with the transboundary crisis at hand, and how did this cooperation impact the development of the crisis? An informed argu- ment is made for combining crisis management research—in particular a model oper- ationalizing conditions for transboundary cooperation—with an applied history per- spective to shed light on the current obstacles to international cooperation in Covid-19 times.

The European Union (EU) has modest but promising capacities to assist member states overwhelmed by disaster through its Civil Protection Mechanism. The EU also routinely sends civil and military missions to hotspots outside EU territory. But these capacities do not suffice in the face of transboundary crises: threats that cross geographical and policy borders within the Union. Examples include epidemics, financial crises, floods, and cyber terrorism. Nation states cannot cope with these threats without international collaboration. In this article, we explore the EU's efforts to develop transboundary crisis management capacities. We describe these budding capacities, explain their policy origins, and explore their future potential. ; AuthorCount:3;

A collection of case studies from nonwestern countries that offers an analysis of the significant role culture plays in crisis communication Culture and Crisis Communication presents an examination of how politics, culture, religion, and other social issues affect crisis communication and management in nonwestern countries. From intense human tragedy to the follies of the rich, the chapters examine how companies, organizations, news outlets, health organizations, technical experts, politicians, and local communities communicate in crisis situations. Taking a wider view than a single country s perspective, the text contains a cross-cultural and cross-country approach. In addition, the case studies offer valuable lessons that organizations that wish to operate or are operating in those cultures can adopt in preparing and managing crises. The book highlights recent crisis events such as Syria s civil war, missing Malaysia Flight MH370, andJapan s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Each of the case studies examines how culture impacts communication and responses to crises. Authoritative, insightful, and instructive, this important resource: Analyzes how nonwestern cultures respond to crises Covers therole of culture in crisis communication in recent news events Includes contributions from 18 international authors who provide insight on nonwestern culture and crisis communication Written for communication professionals, academics, and students, Culture and Crisis Communication presents an insightful introduction to the topic of culture and crisis communication and then delves into illustrative case studies that explore intra-cultural and trans-boundary crisis communication.

AbstractTransboundary crises, incidents and disasters, such as chemical spills, airplane crashes and critical infrastructure breakdowns, involving multiple levels and domains of governance pose a particular set of challenges. These challenges also pertain to the investigation and learning phase of a crisis. We study a typical transboundary case: the crash of a Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), with 298 people on board from a variety of nationalities but the majority from the Netherlands, that crashed in Ukraine in a conflict zone near the Russian border. The MH17 case contains valuable lessons on transboundary disaster investigations. The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) took the lead of the international independent investigation into the causes of the crash. With an international group of stakeholders, the DSB investigated a crash that resulted from a bilateral conflict, requiring the support from Ukraine's powerful neighbour Russia that meanwhile stood accused of withholding evidence and supporting Ukrainian separatists. Retrieving evidence and researching the causality of the crash was no easy task. If countries wish to follow their ambition to learn from accidents in order to "prevent the past repeated," they may more often need to investigate such transboundary cases. This case study probes into how challenges that are typical to transboundary crises affected the accident investigation into the MH17 disaster. We search for lessons on transboundary accident investigation that transcend the boundaries of this single case. Such lessons may prove invaluable for learning from future accidents.

This article draws on a comprehensive new data set of crisis management capacities at the European Union level to highlight key patterns in their development and use. Organised within the categories of detection, sense‐making, decision‐making, coordination, meaning‐making, communication, and accountability, the data show considerable accumulation of capacities in detection and sense‐making, while decision‐making capacities lag behind. We find that most capacities are sector‐oriented rather than cross‐sectoral, and reside primarily within the European Commission rather than other EU institutions. Comparing the data to previous studies, we note that capacities overall are increasing and some are undergoing evolution; for example, horizon‐scanning tools once limited to collecting information have increasingly been given an analytical, "information enrichment" function akin to sense‐making.

What ideas guide European political leaders during a transboundary European crisis, and when and why do their ideas change? When faced with major political challenges in Europe, answers to these questions provide important insights to understand the complexity of European crisis management. In her dissertation 'The role of EU leaders and ideas in managing the Eurozone crisis: navigating uncharted territory', Marij Swinkels explored the role of ideas of European political leaders in the Eurozone crisis. In her dissertation, she shows how ideas shape leaders' responses to a transboundary crisis. First, contextual conditions (including economic pressure) and personality traits (such as a leaders' belief to control events) influence the way leaders define a crisis as well as their ideas about the economy. Second, leaders with more stable and rigid ideas about a crisis or the economy limit the possibilities for joint decision-making. And third, frequent interaction between leaders can reduce ideational differences as a larger group of leaders with shared ideas assume important positions. This helps to create a joint response to cope with European crises. With her dissertation, Swinkels shows that crisis management in the EU is not a technical and rational process per se, but a struggle and puzzle about definitions of and solutions for a crisis.

In recent years, the European continent has witnessed a substantial number of 'transboundary crises' - crises that cross geographical borders and affect multiple policy domains. Nation states find it hard to deal with such crises by themselves. International cooperation, thus, becomes increasingly important, but it is not clear what shape or form that cooperation should take. This article explores the growing role of the European Union (EU) in managing transboundary crises. More specifically, it reflects on the different ways in which the expanding contours of the EU's emerging crisis capacity can be organized. Using three 'performative dimensions' - sense-making, coordination, and legitimacy - the article discusses the possible advantages and disadvantages of a decentralized, network model and compares it with a more centralized, lead-agency model. It concludes that the current network model is a logical outcome of the punctuated and fragmentary process through which EU crisis management capacities have been created. It also notes that the shortcomings of this model may necessitate elements of a lead-agency model. Such 'agencification' of networks for transboundary crisis management may well lead to a hybrid model that is uniquely suited for the peculiar organizational and political creature that the EU is. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractTransboundary crises, incidents, and disasters, such as chemical spills, airplane crashes, and critical infrastructure breakdowns, involving multiple levels and domains of governance pose a particular set of challenges (Ansell et al, 2010; Boin, 2019; Kuipers & Boin, 2015). These challenges also pertain to the investigation and learning phase of a crisis. We study a typical transboundary case: the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), with 298 people on board from a variety of nationalities but the majority from the Netherlands, that crashed in Ukraine in a conflict zone near the Russian border. The MH17 case contains valuable lessons on transboundary disaster investigations. The Dutch Safety Board (DSB) took the lead of the international independent investigation into the causes of the crash. With an international group of stakeholders, the DSB investigated a crash that resulted from a bilateral conflict, requiring the support from Ukraine's powerful neighbour Russia that meanwhile stood accused of withholding evidence and supporting Ukrainian separatists. Retrieving evidence and researching the causality of the crash was no easy task. If countries wish to follow their ambition to learn from accidents in order to "prevent the past repeated," they may more often need to investigate such transboundary cases. This case study probes into how challenges that are typical to transboundary crises affected the accident investigation into the MH17 disaster. We search for lessons on transboundary accident investigation that transcend the boundaries of this single case. Such lessons may prove invaluable for learning from future accidents.