The politics of governing crises: three types of policymaking under uncertainty, urgency, and threat

Giliberto Capano, Philippe Zittoun and Stefania Profeti

Policy and Society, 2026, vol. 45, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: The article aims to present a conceptual framework for analyzing the politics of governing crises. This is achieved through the identification of three ideal types: “governing during the crisis,” “governing the crisis,” and “governing by the crisis.” The core of the article’s argument is that the function of political actors in determining the definition of a crisis is paramount. It is demonstrated that crises are not objective phenomena; rather, they are constructed through processes of interpretation, framing, and strategic narration. The different politics of governing crises reflect different actors’ assumptions about threat, urgency, and uncertainty, and lead to different policy trajectories and types of change. These paths range from reversion (a return to a previous state, thus no change) to normalization (marginal change, adaptation—i.e., intermediate changes) and acceleration (major transformation). These governing logics reveal how crises are used to justify political inaction, technocratic management, or sweeping reform. The article’s integration of insights from public policy and crisis management is a significant contribution to ongoing debates on crisis meaning-making, legitimacy, and institutional change. It also introduces the special issue with an analytical lens that offers a comprehensive understanding of how crises reshape policy and politics.

Keywords: crisis governance; political framing; meaning-making; policy change; legitimacy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/polsoc/puaf044 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:polsoc:v:45:y:2026:i:1:p:1-13.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Policy and Society is currently edited by Daniel Béland, Giliberto Capano, Michael Howlett and M. Ramesh

More articles in Policy and Society from Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().