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The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure. Arjen Boin, Paul 't Hart, Eric Stern, and Bengt Sundelius. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, ISBN 0521845378
This compact monograph should be required reading for anyone who wishes to engage with the institutional implications of extreme natural or political events in the coming decade. "Crises" are conceptualized as situations in which "policymakers experience a serious threat to the basic structure or fundamental values and norms of a system, which under time pressure and highly uncertain circumstances necessitates making vital decisions"(2). Such events have in a sense been globalized in perception and expected impacts, and we see widespread demands that political leaders somehow prepare societies around the world to respond in ways that lend credibility to their institutions and reduce public fears of grievous consequences. Written in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack and released before the experiences of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, or Israel's incursion into Lebanon, the lineaments of this work now seem eerily apt.
The book's manifest audiences are both academics-it argues for an "integrated approach that social scientists may use to study crises"-and senior practitioners in the public sector. The authors strive for "a condensed exploration of.. .pitfalls and strategic considerations that... should inform crisis leadership"(x). This is based on their own research of over a decade,' and carefully culling relevant literatures with the intent, as the authors' put it, of summarizing their "ideas about the political challenges and realities of public leadership in times of crisis"(ix).
Rather than merely reporting and integrating a wide range of research findings (this is done with compact skill), they take an argumentative, theory-building approach, with each chapter posing a key question and a central claim about the leadership challenges that face those nominally in charge. These are ordered in terms of "five core tasks of crisis leadership: sense making, decision making, meaning making, terminating, and learning." This analytical reach is considerable. In pursuing it, the authors' conceptual frame will seem both familiar and arresting to readers of this journal. The broad parameters of the argument ring smoothly to the ears of those who draw on organizational and management theories to understand public institutions. What startles is the concatenating combination of factors and the cumulative analytical...