Crisis Governance and Emergency Preparedness

fakultatywne

Knowledge of English language

w sali

The class makes a concise introduction into the topic of governing with crisis and preparing for unexpected events and emergencies in contemporary society. It tackles crises and emergencies from a perspective that concerns crisis-talk, rhetoric, reproduction of power relations, forms of knowledge and patterns of response that resemble failure-related processes. It singles out mechanisms of governance and shows that preparation and waiting for projected emergencies constitute one of the main forms of coping with crises today. The empirical part builds on shared experiences, interpretations and anticipations of crises from economic, mobility, ecological, and public health domains.

The class makes a concise introduction into the topic of governing with crisis and preparing for unexpected events and emergencies in contemporary society. It tackles crises and emergencies from a perspective that concerns crisis-talk, rhetoric, reproduction of power relations, forms of knowledge and patterns of response that resemble failure-related processes. It singles out mechanisms of governance and shows that preparation and waiting for projected emergencies constitute one of the main forms of coping with crises today. The empirical part builds on shared experiences, interpretations and anticipations of crises from economic, mobility, ecological, and public health domains.

The class discusses how the scholar interpretations and calls for contributions in relation to crises and emergencies (the refugee crisis and COVID-19 included) usually align two realities. The preparation and prevention, on the one hand. The economic and social implications of the crises, on the other hand. The class shows that these two dimensions are quite intermingled. The projection of consequences is the basis of activities of preparation, while preparation leads to reification of consequences, processes of prioritization and legitimization of activities.

Much of the coping with the contemporary crises, as well as measure taken by political actors are projective and legitimized with regard to the anticipated potential effects of the crises. Rendering preparation as a process of study in social sciences is essential in order to capture these new dynamics and develop analytical frameworks for capturing their implications as well as interaction with other processes – such as contestation of policy responses.

The class tackles topics such as:

Crises as failures, uncontrollability

Crises and emotions

Crises and ignorance

Crises and forms of knowledge

Coping, preparation

What does Covid-2019 bring new? Old and new crisis-prone domains

[selected parts from the following readings]

Risk, crisis, emergency and failure

- Beck, U. (1999) World Risk Society, Malden, MA, Polity Press.

Agamben, G. (2013) ‘The Endless Crisis as an Instrument of Power: In Conversation with Giorgio Agamben’, Verso, June 4

- Scholten, P. (2019). Mainstreaming versus alienation: Conceptualising the role of complexity in migration and diversity policymaking. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2019.1625758

- Rosa, H. 2020. Uncontrollability of the World. Polity Press

Contested crises

- Taleb, N. N. (2007) The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, New York, Random House.

- Grabel, I. (2018). When things don’t fall apart: Global financial governance and developmental finance in an age of productive incoherence. MIT Press.

- Best, J. (2019, June 5). Neoliberalism’s ‘Unfailures.’ Brave New Europe.

Crises & forms of knowledge, ignorance

- Sunstein, C. R. and Zeckhauser, R. (2011) ‘Overreaction to Fearsome Risks’, Environmental and Resource Economics, 48, 435–449

- Davies, W. and McGoey, L. (2012) ‘Rationalities of Ignorance: On Financial Crisis and the Ambivalence of Neo-Liberal Epistemology’, Economy and Society, 41, 64–83

- Capano, G., Howlett, M., Jarvis, Darryl S.L., Ramesh, M. and Goyal, N. 2020. ‘Mobilizing Policy (In)Capacity to Fight COVID-19: Understanding Variations in State Responses. Policy and Society 39 (online)

Crises, preparation and the future

- Mische, A. (2014). “Measuring futures in action: Projective grammars in the Rio + 20 debates”, Theory and Society, 43(3–4), 437–464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-014-9226-3

- Andrew Lakoff. 2017. Unprepared Global Health in a Time of Emergency. University of California Press

- Beckert, J. (2020) ‘The Exhausted Futures of Neoliberalism: From Promissory Legitimacy to Social Anomy’, Journal of Cultural Economy, 13, 318–330

Case studies

[literature to be selected in accordance with the interests of the students]

K_W03 Is aware of ongoing theoretical and methodological disputes conducted in modern sociology; is reflective and critical of various positions

K_W16 Has in-depth knowledge about major international and domestic sociological research pertaining to selected areas of social reality or sub-domains of sociology

K_W27 Has in-depth knowledge of the 19th, 20th and 21st ideas and social processes which have shaped the face of the modern world

K_U04 Can critically select information and materials for academic work, using various sources in Polish and a foreign language as well as modern technologies

K_U16 Knows how to interpret the role of culture in the life of the individual and society

K_U19 Can prepare a presentation of a selected problem or study in Polish and in a foreign language

K_K02 Can propose a solution to a problem that requires an interdisciplinary research approach

K_K05 Can gather, find, synthesize and critically assess information about social sciences

participation in the discussion (40%)

an interview with one person regarding personal or organizational experience of governing crisis or preparing for emergency event (30%)

presentation and interpretation of interview conclusions on the basis of three readings discussed during the class (30%)