Premium
Learning from crisis: The role of enquiry commissions
Author(s) -
Renå Helge,
Christensen Johan
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of contingencies and crisis management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.007
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5973
pISSN - 0966-0879
DOI - 10.1111/1468-5973.12269
Subject(s) - commission , argument (complex analysis) , government (linguistics) , function (biology) , work (physics) , political science , terrorism , dual (grammatical number) , public administration , sociology , law and economics , public relations , law , engineering , mechanical engineering , art , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , philosophy , literature , evolutionary biology , biology
The literature on crisis learning has thus far paid little attention to the institutional channels through which governments draw lessons from crisis events. This paper examines theoretically and empirically a key institutional site for crisis learning: enquiry commissions. The theoretical argument is illustrated by analysing the enquiry commission that examined the 2011 terrorist attacks in Norway. The paper argues that the work of enquiry commissions exhibits tensions that condition the subsequent opportunities of government to learn from crisis. The paper shows how the lessons drawn by the commission investigating the attacks were shaped by the commission's dual function, by the dominant professional perspectives within the group, and by the specific models of decision‐making and assessment standards that the commission adopted.