New Trends in Crisis Management Practice and Crisis Management Research: Setting the Agenda

The world of crises and crisis management has changed considerably over the past decades. In 1989, a large volume of case studies was published, covering mostly crises that had occurred in the 1970s and 1980s (Rosenthal, Charles and `t Hart, 1989). The book analysed Cold-War confrontations such as the KAL 007 Korean airliner case, classic `70s terrorism (drawn-out hostage takings), natural disasters (the 1986 El Salvador earthquake), and the perennial street confrontations between authorities and radical or `deviant' (one might also call them `desperate') groups in society (Move, Brixton riots, Amsterdam inauguration day). The subtitle of the book said it all: `managing disasters, riots, and terrorism.' This year, a new volume of case studies appears with the same publisher (Rosenthal, Boin and Comfort, 2001). And the differences are stark. The classic crises are still represented, such as the LA riots, the Turkish earthquakes, disasters in industries (the oil platform Piper Alpha), and plane crashes (the Hercules crash in the Netherlands). But the emphasis of this upcoming volume lays on the new kinds of crises that are troubling Western societies and elites: the (post)industrial, postnational crises ± of which Chernobyl was really the only hint in the first volume ± such as Mad Cow disease, water depletion, IT breakdowns and viral pandemics. We strongly notice the winds of change in our own country. The trends described below are undoubtedly shaped by living in Western Europe, which is integrating economically and politically. Western European countries have opened their mutual borders and are becoming more densely populated, while their economies are changing from industrial to service-based. However, we should be careful to generalise the trends identified here without qualification. Not only are the classic crises ± think of floods, famines, earthquakes, military coups and civil wars ± still the dominant mode of misery in most of the world, there are also the idiosyncratic problems and political-administrative conditions of the new democracies of Eastern Europe. These societies are experiencing the peculiar problems of high-speed transition to capitalism, democracy and postindustrial society (Stern and Hanse n, 2000). But even within the West, developments are not fully uniform. Take quiet, relatively remote Sweden. There, as in all of Scandinavia, authorities, press and the general public are just waking up to the notion of emergency management and all it entails (Lintonen, 2000). Having lived in blissful prosperity and safety for decades, Chernobyl was their first wake-up call, followed by the traumatic assassination of Olof Palme. Nevertheless, it took gruesome incidents such as the Estonia ferry tragedy, a `war' between rival biker gangs, and a major fire in a GoÈ teborg disco with visitors of various ethnic background, to break through the widespread assumption that `it cannot happen here,' which had reigned supreme in these and, for that matter, many other countries. The situation has changed since these incidents. The Swedish presidency of the EU gently tried to place the topic of strengthening national and transnational crisis management capabilities on the European political agenda. The outbreaks of BSE and, more recently, Foot and Mouth disease have demonstrated that European crises demand a European approach (GroÈ nvall, 2001). It is in this spirit that the European Crisis Management Academy (ECMA) held its first official conference in November 2001 (Stockholm). Closing out the ninth volume of a journal that has done much to further the crisis research agenda, this issue focuses on the shape of current and future crisis research in the light of the changes taking place around us. What has been changing in the kinds of contingencies that crisis managers have been preparing for and Paul `t Hart, Crisis Research Center, Department of Public Administration, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. Email: hartp@fsw.leidenuniv.nl. Liesbet Heyse, Crisis Research Center, Department of Public Administration, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. Email: heyse@fsw.leidenuniv.nl. Arjen Boin, Crisis Research Center, Department of Public Administration, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9555 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. Email: boin@fsw.leidenuniv.nl.