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Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
... Even sustainable growth and the fashion for sustainable entrepreneurship or eco-entrepreneurship have become "dangerous contradictions in terms" to generalize from Douthwaite (1992, p.286). Being addicted to these growth myths has blinded most entrepreneurship scholarship to the extent to which entrepreneurship is implicated in what has been described as the polycrisis (Lawrence et al., 2024). Moreover, it has resulted in neglect of the nature and role of entrepreneurship in a post-growth economy. ...
... First, there is little doubt that despite the unparalleled prosperity that economic growth has brought to many, it has also been hugely damaging to Earth's biophysical systems, increasingly threatening ecological collapse and multiple environmental crises -a global polycrisis (Bradshaw et al., 2021;Lawrence et al., 2024). ...
... This has however made the world much more vulnerable to risk. Because of hyper-connectivity and homogenization of economies, the impacts of an adverse event can spread faster and everywhere, and with everyone being homogeneous and thus similarly exposed, the consequences can be far deadlier overall (Lawrence et al., 2024). ...
... Researchers at the 'Cascade Institute', a research centre focused on the analysis of complex global systems, define 'polycrisis' as the causal entanglement of crises in multiple, inter-connected natural and social systems in ways that can irreversibly degrade humanity's future (Lawrence et al., 2023). The causes and processes of these intertwined, multiple crises are inextricably bound together to create compounded effects (Allouche et al., 2023). ...
... Understanding polycrises could prevent potential dangers resulting from 'single crisis' interventions, where action to address one problem inadvertently leads to another problem due to a lack of understanding of complex connections (Allouche et al., 2023). A polycrisis can occur at different scales -local, national, regional, or global -in other words, at any scale that hosts interacting systems (Lawrence et al., 2023). ...
... While this is not humanity's first polycrisis, it is unprecedent insofar as the world is more connected, and our planet's current ecological systems are more destabilised than ever before. This hyperconnectivity and ecosphere destabilisation are amplifying and accelerating simultaneous crisis events worldwide (Lawrence et al., 2023). As argued by Homer-Dixon and colleagues (2022), the governance of the emerging risk of a polycrisis is to a large extent non-existent, predominately given that national and international institutions tend to manage risks as isolated cases. ...
... When heeded, collective wisdom helps us detect, prevent, mitigate, and adapt to emerging crises [4]. Humanity is now entwined in a planetary crisis that threatens much of the human and more-than-human world [5][6][7]. Disentangling ourselves from this wide, sticky, and dangerous web, while often enticing, is impossible. Consequently, understanding and responding to what has been described as a "metacrisis" in a way that reduces suffering and nurtures conditions for long-term viability is a collective existential quest. ...
... We are in a time of crisis. In fact, we are in a time of multiple, interacting, and mutually reinforcing crises-a polycrisis-that arise from and perpetuate issues such as ecological collapse, rivalrous geopolitical rifts, and existential technologies [6,9,10]. This interconnected crisis web has emerged from a breakdown in individual and collective capacities to perceive, engage, reflect, relate, and understand phenomena [11,12]. ...
... Interventions such as market-based "healing" or artificial pearl formation are not incentivized to heal but rather create a constant cycle of irritants or stressors for which they can offer a consumable solution. This superficial, artificial, and constant irritant-response model does little to enable the building of longerterm or cumulative resilience, and, in fact, can distract from broader, systemic issues such as the poly/metacrisis [6,13]. ...
The impetus for this paper emerges from the growing interest in leveraging inner transformations to support a global shift in ways of seeing and being. We caution that without sufficient individual and systemic maturity, inner transformations will be unable to hold the whole story and that attempts to drive paradigmatic shifts in ill-prepared systems will lead to insidious harms. As such, interventions for inner change will not have sufficient protected niche space to move beyond the boundaries of best practices towards wise practices. Drawing on Indigenous trans-systemics, we offer the metaphor of pearls as an invitation to recontextualize how inner transformations are conceived and approached in the metacrisis. To further develop this notion, we share a story of Wendigo and Moloch as a precautionary tale for the blind pursuit of inner and outer development. Weaving together metaphor, story, and scientific inquiry, we bring together Anishinaabe and Western knowledge systems for the purposes of healing and transformation. We hope that this paper will create space for wise practices—gifts from Creator to help sustain both Self and the World—to emerge, establish, and flourish. We invite readers on an exploration into the whole system of systems that are endemic to Anishinaabe cosmology, and a journey of reimagining new stories for collective flourishing amidst the metacrisis.
... Many scholars argue that we are in a time of extraordinary global risk (e.g. (Centeno et al., 2015;Lawrence et al., 2023; Lynas, 2020; Ord, 2020)), in which a variety of hazards such as war, disease, or a changing climate threaten humanity on an unprecedented scale. Global risk here means risk to humanity on a global scale. ...
... Approaches to studying global risk vary and overlap. For example, some scholars approach the study of global risks through the lens of tipping points , while others use a frame of critical transitions (Scheffer et al., 2012), systemic risk (Arnscheidt et al., 2024;Centeno et al., 2015), or global polycrisis (Lawrence et al., 2023). ...
The global catastrophic risk (GCR) and existential risk (ER) literature focuses on analysing and preventing potential major global catastrophes including a human extinction event. Over the past two decades, the field of GCR/ER research has grown considerably. However, there has been little meta-research on the field itself. How large has this body of literature become? What topics does it cover? Which fields does it interact with? What challenges does it face? To answer these questions, here we present the first systematic bibliometric analysis of the GCR/ER literature. We consider all 3,437 documents in the OpenAlex database that mention either GCR or ER, and use bibliographic coupling (two documents are considered similar when they share many references) to identify ten distinct emergent research clusters in the GCR/ER literature. These clusters 2 align in part with commonly identified drivers of GCR, such as advanced artificial intelligence (AI), climate change, and pandemics, or discuss the conceptual foundations of the GCR/ER field. However, the field is much broader than these topics, touching on disciplines as diverse as economics, climate modeling, agriculture, psychology, and philosophy. The metadata reveal that there are around 150 documents published on GCR/ER each year, the field has highly unequal gender representation, most research is done in the US and the UK, and many of the published articles come from a small subset of authors. We recommend creating new conferences and potentially new journals where GCR/ER focused research can aggregate, making gender and geographic diversity a higher priority, and fostering synergies across clusters to think about GCR/ER in a more holistic way. We also recommend building more connections to new fields and neighboring disciplines, such as systemic risk and policy, to encourage cross-fertilisation and the broader adoption of GCR/ER research.
... This polycrisisa series of interwoven and overlapping global criseshas no clear end. Economists, sociologists, and historians increasingly agree that we are living in times of multiple crises (Lawrence et al. 2023;Rockström et al. 2021). Crisis can be defined as a sudden event or series of events that significantly harm a large number of people in a short period (Lawrence et al. 2023). ...
... Economists, sociologists, and historians increasingly agree that we are living in times of multiple crises (Lawrence et al. 2023;Rockström et al. 2021). Crisis can be defined as a sudden event or series of events that significantly harm a large number of people in a short period (Lawrence et al. 2023). If a crisis is an extremely harmful emergency, then the prefix 'poly-' in polycrisis denotes multiple such events. ...
Although the entrepreneurial gender gap is decreasing in European economies, the obstacles faced by women entrepreneurs remain numerous and often differ from those encountered by men. The COVID-19 pandemic, and then the energy crisis, have made it even harder for women entrepreneurs to sustain their businesses and have added to the challenges of work and private life. Women entrepreneurs, among many others, had to face how to survive crises and adjust their businesses to new circumstances to become more resilient, remain competitive and sustainable in times of crises, and in particular to improve their digital skills. A new insight is crucial for more efficient entrepreneurial development for women. A cross-country research helps to identify the needs of women entrepreneurs and provide a solid basis for the development of tailor-made activities focusing on innovative and practical solutions to support the up-skilling and resilience of women entrepreneurs. Through a survey conducted with 608 women entrepreneurs from seven European countries, our basic question was how women entrepreneurs managed to get through and become resilient in times of crises. The focus of our analysis is digitalization: did the rapid digital transition help women entrepreneurs become resilient during turbulent times? Did the practicing of digitalization-based resilience strategies (including remote work, online sales and similar approaches) improve women entrepreneurs' operational efficiency and strength?
... Crisis can be considered acute or chronic, depending upon their onset speed, duration, locale, and intensity [1]. This article draws from the conference's deliberations, emphasizing the need for a greater diversity of forms of science and knowledge in addressing the intertwined challenges that affect both Earth's systems and socio-economic structures [3]. Climate change, biodiversity loss, armed conflicts, inequality, and human and animal migrations have all accelerated and often amplify each other, leading to localized emergencies such as epidemics, wildfires, floods, food shortages, increased poverty, and environmental pollution, necessitating urgent responses [3]. ...
... This article draws from the conference's deliberations, emphasizing the need for a greater diversity of forms of science and knowledge in addressing the intertwined challenges that affect both Earth's systems and socio-economic structures [3]. Climate change, biodiversity loss, armed conflicts, inequality, and human and animal migrations have all accelerated and often amplify each other, leading to localized emergencies such as epidemics, wildfires, floods, food shortages, increased poverty, and environmental pollution, necessitating urgent responses [3]. A more fluid, timely, and integrative approach is needed for incorporating science into the resolution of complex polycrises, including the encouragement of a scientific culture with public engagement in policy, regulatory, and financial actions [4]. ...
... The discussion on climate change causing conflict is continued in the 6 th Assessment Report 16 . It also appears as one component in a set of global polycrises 17 . ...
... The presence of multiple overlapping health issues, termed a syndemic, is further complicated in the age of polycrises. Crisis responses increasingly require coordination from multiple sectors, including, but not limited to, health care, environment, and social services [3,4]. In order to address the gaps in our current systems of care, deliberate and cohesive societal efforts are required to understand and respond to existing inefficiencies in health systems. ...
Background:
The current public health crises we face, including communicable disease pandemics such as COVID-19, require cohesive societal efforts to address decision-making gaps in our health systems. Digital health platforms that leverage big data ethically from citizens can transform health systems by enabling real-time data collection, communication, and rapid responses. However, the lack of standardized and evidence-based methods to develop and implement digital health platforms currently limits their application.
Objective:
This study aims to apply mixed evaluation methods to assess the development of a rapid response COVID-19 digital health platform before public launch by engaging with the development and research team, which consists of interdisciplinary researchers (ie, key stakeholders).
Methods:
Using a developmental evaluation approach, this study conducted (1) a qualitative survey assessing digital health platform objectives, modifications, and challenges administered to 5 key members of the software development team and (2) a role-play pilot with 7 key stakeholders who simulated 8 real-world users, followed by a self-report survey, to evaluate the utility of the digital health platform for each of its objectives. Survey data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. Postpilot test survey data were aggregated and synthesized by participant role.
Results:
The digital health platform met original objectives and was expanded to accommodate the evolving needs of potential users and COVID-19 pandemic regulations. Key challenges noted by the development team included navigating changing government policies and supporting the data sovereignty of platform users. Strong team cohesion and problem-solving were essential in the overall success of program development. During the pilot test, participants reported positive experiences interacting with the platform and found its features relatively easy to use. Users in the community member role felt that the platform accurately reflected their risk of contracting COVID-19, but reported some challenges interacting with the interface. Those in the decision maker role found the data visualizations helpful for understanding complex information. Both participant groups highlighted the utility of a tutorial for future users.
Conclusions:
Evaluation of the digital health platform development process informed our decisions to integrate the research team more cohesively with the development team, a practice that is currently uncommon given the use of external technology vendors in health research. In the short term, the developmental evaluation resulted in shorter sprints, and the role-play exercise enabled improvements to the log-in process and user interface ahead of public deployment. In the long term, this exercise informed the decision to include a data scientist as part of both teams going forward to liaise with researchers throughout the development process. More interdisciplinarity was also integrated into the research process by providing health system training to computer programmers, a key factor in human-centered artificial intelligence development.
... The analyses presented in this study highlight that the concept of polycrisis can be characterized by a range of individual features, extending beyond a typical, global socio-economic phenomenon (Henig & Knight, 2023;Lawrence et al., 2023). In fact, three distinct groups were identified, each with varying degrees of response to specific crises, including Covid-19, the economic downturn, the conflict in Ukraine and environmental challenges. ...
Despite substantial investments in mental health care and healthcare accessibility in Europe, the mental well-being of young people is on a concerning decline. This deterioration is further exacerbated by recent global crises, notably the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and the deepening economic crisis leading to increased poverty and social exclusion. The main research goal was to investigate how young people entering adulthood experience polycrisis concerning stress, responsibility for crises, and self-perceived proximity. The study involved 403 young adult Poles, taking high school final exams in the years 2020–21. Assessment tools included the Brief Symptoms Inventory 18, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, Personality Inventory for ICD-11, and Flourishing Index. Using the latent class analysis, three distinct profiles were identified, representing diverse experiences of polycrisis. Group 1 primarily experienced stress related to economic crisis, reported lower depression rates and maintained relatively stable economic well-being. Group 2 confronted various aspects of polycrisis, excluding COVID-19, and carried a strong sense of responsibility for the climate crisis while experiencing emotional challenges. Group 3 experienced the full spectrum of polycrisis, showing tendencies towards perfectionism and rule rigidity, without specific mental health problems. The findings of this study provide valuable insights for developing models of young adults’ post-crisis functioning and for designing early, targeted interventions. Clinical Trial: The clinical trial identifier is NCT05930652.
... Economic and financial crises are known to be cyclical. More recently, the notion that crises are not only recurring but feeding into one another in a seemingly permanent cycle of "cascading failures" has gained traction (Lawrence et al., 2023;Zuleeg et al., 2021). Economic, environmental, political, and social fragility reinforces prevailing uncertainty and renders it systemic. ...
In the absence of a global bankruptcy court for sovereign debt, crises leading to debt restructurings have evolved within an imperfect architecture mired in creditor coordination problems. These challenges are now part of a permacrisis of interconnected global dysfunction that defies existing institutions and their approaches to tackling recurrent problems. The chapter reviews the ways in which debt restructurings have taken place since the 1980s: from the securitization of commercial bank loans to financial fragility and new defaults on sovereign bonds. The costs of default have been compounded by the risks of litigation in foreign courts brought about by a minority of creditors. In the shadow of failed attempts to institute a statutory mechanism for resolving sovereign debt disputes, “market-based” contractual changes have become the norm. However inventive and incremental, these do not preclude some creditors from trying to leverage contract provisions to disrupt restructurings and extract larger repayments from debtors. Without fundamental change brought about by global cooperation, ad hoc ingenuity has had to make do. The past is thus condemned to remain an insufficient prologue to a future where sovereign debt restructurings are a predictable part of an ever-confounding permacrisis.
... Of particular relevance are questions regarding the ability of scenarios to capture nonlinear and disruptive changes, as scenarios conventionally have not considered sharp discontinuities with past trends (Raskin & Swart, 2020). The insights gained -or not gained -from scenario processes are likely to affect risk management decisions with significant and potentially lasting or irreversible material outcomes (Lawrence et al., 2024). Further, overly narrow or unimaginative assumptions about possibilities for transformative change can impact the ambition, inclusivity, and effectiveness of strategic actions to achieve a sustainable future. ...
... Hence, pluralist approaches that adapt methods from other disciplines, including social and life sciences, can also aid in contextualising and translating insights from economics to and from these research fields. 8 The interdependencies between the economic, social, financial, political and environmental spheres have partly found their way into economic thinking and decision-making (WEF 2023).Thereby, the interdisciplinary Gräbner and Strunk (2020) exchange that is inherent in pluralism is especially valuable in studying a polycrisis that cuts across multiple disciplines (Lawrence et al. 2024): One cannot assume adjacent systems studied by other disciplines to remain constant or treat events in these systems as external shocks because they react to changes in the economic sphere and simultaneously influence them. ...
Interacting crises at economic, societal, ecological, and geopolitical levels reveal the fragility of connected global systems and give momentum to pluralist economic thinking as a suitable approach to address the complexity and uncertainty of today’s economy. This special issue (SI) explores how young economists, educated in this era, study economic phenomena through pluralist lenses. Due to the structure of interdependent crises and inherent uncertainty, pluralism of values, theory and methods may benefit the academic and policy debate on solutions for today’s political, social, and scientific challenges. Applied to the crisis context, this SI shows a range of research methods and interdisciplinary approaches, reflecting a shift in economic thinking that embraces the complexity, limited predictability, and fragility of socioeconomic systems. The SI aims to promote a dialogue across schools of economic thought to enhance our understanding and contribute to robust and inclusive policy.
... As the polycrisis takes center stage, it is increasingly used as a conceptual framework to evaluate the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to address sustainability beyond 2030 (Lawrence et al., 2024). Critics question the effectiveness of sustainability transformation as a crucial pathway to ensure the well-being of both humanity and the planet (Gabriel et al., 2022, Brand et al., 2021. ...
In the context of an increasingly interconnected polycrisis—encompassing climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, and geopolitical tensions—this paper introduces a transformative vision for sustainability centred on the concept of care. By redefining human flourishing through the lens of Homo Curans, the caring human, the paper argues for integrating multidimensional care into sustainability pathways. This approach emphasizes care for oneself, others, society, the environment, and transcendental or spiritual and immaterial aspects of life as essential components for achieving sustainable and equitable futures.
This paper outlines practical pathways for embedding care within social institutions such as politics, economics, technology, education, and religion. By challenging dominance-based values and fostering a shift towards partnership, equity, and cooperation, it highlights the potential of care to reshape these institutions and address the root causes of the polycrisis. The Homo Curans framework provides a comprehensive and interconnected approach to sustainability, emphasizing proactive stewardship, long-term thinking, and inclusive decision-making.
This redefined vision of human flourishing calls for further debate and research on the role of care in sustainability transformations. It underscores the need for ethical boundaries and value systems that support holistic development, aiming to create a resilient, just, and sustainable future for all. By placing care at the heart of sustainability efforts, the paper offers a compelling alternative pathway that prioritizes well-being and interconnectedness, fostering resilience and adaptability in the face of global challenges.
... Crisis entanglement in complexity sees one or more slow-moving stresses interacting with a fast-moving trigger event to push a system out of an established equilibrium into instability. The synchronization of crises were connected through three causal pathways: (a) common stresses; (b) domino effects; and (c) inter-systemic feedbacks (Lawrence et al., 2023). In 2023, the World Economic Forum released the 18th edition of its Global Risk Report. ...
As Industry 4.0 matures, what’s next? A generational shift to 5.0? Or an incremental adaptation to 4.x? Systems changes may involve both Socio-Technical Systems (STS) changes and Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) changes. Distinctions are explored historically circa 1492 with The Age of Discovery and Industry 0.0, evolving through centuries before a 1.0 Industrial Revolution. From the late twentieth century, The Age of Information was led by STS changes bringing a service economy and a knowledge society. Into 2024, polycrisis appears to be building with SES changes of natural disruptions due to climate change and the pandemic. Prospects for 2030 see eras of a maturing 4.x and emerging 5.0 alongside each other, with uncertainty as to which system characterizes the period.
... In particular, there is a need to shift from conventional risk assessment, which is focused on the likelihood and potential harm of individual events, to systemic risk assessment, which focuses on the risk or probability of breakdowns in an entire system (Lawrence et al., 2023;Monbiot, 2023). [See Fact 4.3] Fact 4.5: Because IPCC reports are developed through a political process requiring consensus, many key issues are downplayed or ignored. ...
Although the 2015 Paris Agreement climate targets seem certain to be missed, only a few experts are questioning the adequacy of the current approach to limiting climate change and suggesting that additional approaches are needed to avoid unacceptable catastrophes. This article posits that selective science communication and unrealistically optimistic assumptions are obscuring the reality that greenhouse gas emissions reduction and carbon dioxide removal will not prevent climate change in the 21st Century. It also explains how overly pessimistic and speculative criticisms are behind opposition to considering potential climate cooling interventions as a complementary approach for mitigating dangerous warming. There is little evidence supporting assertions that: current greenhouse gas emissions reduction and removal methods can and will be ramped up in time to prevent dangerous climate change; overshoot of Paris Agreement targets will be temporary; net zero emissions will produce a safe, stable climate; the impacts of overshoot can be managed and reversed; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models and assessments capture the full scope of prospective disastrous impacts; and the risks of climate interventions are greater than the risks of inaction. These largely unsupported assumptions distort risk assessments and discount the urgent need to develop a viable mitigation strategy. Owing to political pressures, many critical scientific concerns are ignored or preemptively dismissed in international negotiations. As a result, the present and growing crisis and the level of effort and time that will be required to control and rebalance the climate are severely underestimated. The paper concludes by outlining the key elements of a realistic policy approach that would augment current efforts to constrain dangerous warming by supplementing current mitigation approaches with climate cooling interventions.
... 1,2 The presence of multiple overlapping health issues, i.e., syndemics, is further complicated in the age of polycrisis, as crisis response increasingly requires coordination from multiple sectors, including but not limited to healthcare, environment, and social services. 3,4 In order to address the gaps in our current systems of care, deliberate and cohesive societal efforts are required to understand and respond to existing inefficiencies in health systems. ...
Background: The current public health crises we face, which range from communicable disease pandemics such as Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) to endemic chronic diseases, require cohesive, collective, and deliberate societal efforts to address inherent decision-making gaps in our health systems. Digital health platforms that leverage big data ethically from citizens can transform our health systems by enabling real-time data collection, communication, as well as precision prediction and health system rapid responses. However, the lack of standardized and evidence-based methods to develop and implement digital health platforms currently limits their application.
Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the development of a novel rapid response COVID-19 digital health platform by engaging with the development team which includes computer programmers and data scientists, as well as the research team consisting of interdisciplinary researchers (i.e., key stakeholders).
Methods: Using a developmental evaluation approach, this evaluation included two key components: 1) A qualitative survey assessing digital health platform objectives, modifications, and challenges administered to five key members of the software development team; and 2) A role-play pilot with key stakeholders to simulate real-world conditions, followed by a self-report survey, to evaluate the utility of the digital health platform for each of its objectives. Survey data were analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. Post-pilot test survey data were aggregated and synthesized by participant role.
Results: The final digital health platform met original objectives, and was expanded to accommodate evolving needs of potential users and COVID-19 regulations. Key challenges noted by the development team included navigating changing government policies and restrictions, and supporting the data sovereignty of platform users. Strong team cohesion, communication, and problem solving were all quintessential in the overall success of program development. Pilot test participants reported positive experiences interacting with the platform and found its features relatively easy to use. Users in the community member role felt that the platform accurately reflected their risk of contracting COVID-19, but reported challenges interacting with the interface, particularly when submitting citizen reports and food status photos. Those in the decision-maker role found the data visualizations intuitive in helping them to understand the information. Both participant groups highlighted the utility of a tutorial for future users as there were some questions regarding some of the features.
Conclusions: Evaluation of the digital health platform development process informed our decisions to integrate the research team more cohesively with the development team, which resulted in a data scientist being part of both teams going forward. Another key development process decision was to integrate more interdisciplinarity into the research process by providing health system training to computer programmers – a key factor in human-centered artificial intelligence development. The developmental evaluation changed development sprint processes, which paved the way to shorter sprints with quick internal evaluation of ongoing progress.
... African anti-colonial thinkers like Fanon and Biko (drawing also on Paulo Freire) have had substantial influence on pedagogy (Harms Smith, 2019), on identity and liberation politics (Ahluwalia and Zegeye, 2001) and in sparking ideas of a decolonized new humanism (Gibson, 2008). There is thus a rich body of knowledge from which to draw a decolonial futures praxis for Africa in the context of our planetary poly-crisis (Lawrence et al., 2023). However, in spite of this decolonial turn, decolonial ecological research (Apostolopoulou et al., 2021;Trisos et al., 2021), and social-ecological transformations research (Gram-Hanssen et al., 2021;Pereira et al., 2021b) are in their fledgling stage. ...
... The persistent challenges, often referred to as the "polycrisis," entail simultaneous stress on various systems. [78] This encompasses issues such as planetary boundaries, [26] the destabilization of political landscapes, both within nations and in international relations, and their impact on the food system [79] and possible interactions between global disruptive events. [80] The more severe this polycrisis becomes, the greater the challenge will be to adapt to a worldwide catastrophic infrastructure breakdown as outlined here, since addressing sudden and global crises requires global cooperation to be effective. ...
Modern civilization relies on a complex, globally interconnected industrial agriculture system to produce food. Its unprecedented yields hinge on external inputs like machinery, fertilizers, and pesticides, rendering it vulnerable to disruptions in production and international trade. Such a disruption could be caused by large-scale damage to the electrical grid. Solar storms, nuclear detonations in the upper atmosphere, pandemics, or cyber-attacks, could cause this severe damage to electrical infrastructure. To assess the impact of such a global catastrophic infrastructure loss on major food crops (corn, rice, soybean, wheat), we employ a generalized linear model. The predictions show a crop-specific yield reduction between 15% and 37% in phase 1, the year after the catastrophe, assuming rationed use of fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel stocks. In phase 2, when all stocks are depleted, yields decrease by 35%-48%. Soybean is less affected in phase 1, while all crops experience strong declines in phase 2. Europe, North and South America, and parts of India, China, and Indonesia face major yield reductions, potentially up to 75%, while most African countries are less affected. These findings underscore the necessity for preparation by highlighting the vulnerability of the food system.
... The bad news is that our understanding of the concept of design is far from the only thing that very soon needs to change in the face of accelerating 'polycrisis' (Lawrence et al., 2023). ...
The exhibition DESIGN × SCIENCE at Designblok '23 presents a curated selection of six exceptional doctoral design research projects from the Faculty of Architecture and Design at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava.
TR1MTAB.com is a communication and networking platform founded by Michala Lipková to actively seek new industry partnerships and accelerate design-driven technology transfer and multidisciplinary collaboration across (and beyond) STU's faculties.
The concept of functioning as a ‘trimtab’ is based on the American inventor Buckminster Fuller; he believed that small actions deliver global impact. Under the tagline Prototyping Change, the platform aims to contribute to systems-level change toward more sustainable and just futures.
... (Henig and Knight 2023:3). Therefore, it is important to disaggregate what constitutes something new as concerns #polycrisis" and what is simply the recognition of fragility, risk and/or stress in a more globalized and localized context (Lawrence et al. 2023). ...
Most existing literature on business and crisis frames crisis as a singular event that a business must navigate to survive through or thrive after. But how do firms survive through a series of intersecting and overlapping crises (a polycrisis environment), and how do their strategies differ when operating through an environment of perpetual crisis? In Lebanon, overlapping crises grounded in weak political institutions, economic instability and disasters have profoundly impacted Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Beirut SMEs operate in a complex urban environment, where neighboring conflicts, urban insecurity and sectarian divisions impact operations. These firms are often promoted in economic development discourses as engines of resilient livelihood creation, but do SMEs negotiate these conditions in productive ways for the community, and can a 'perpetual crisis operating mentality' deliver positive societal or economic dividends? This paper addresses these questions by developing a framework conceptualizing SME strategies to perpetual crises, drawing on 34 in-depth qualitative interviews with SME owners in Beirut. We find that SMEs use nuanced strategies to contend with multidimensional crises that are distinct from singular crisis approaches, and discuss how 'urban crisis as condition' may shape our understandings of SMEs as peace and development actors. We use these findings to build theory on the role of small business in perpetual crisis and on how survival strategies in such settings can upend business resilience.
... Of particular relevance are questions regarding the ability of scenarios to capture nonlinear and disruptive changes, as scenarios conventionally have not considered sharp discontinuities with past trends (Raskin & Swart, 2020). The insights gained -or not gained -from scenario processes are likely to affect risk management decisions with significant and potentially lasting or irreversible material outcomes (Lawrence et al., 2024). Further, overly narrow or unimaginative assumptions about possibilities for transformative change can impact the ambition, inclusivity, and effectiveness of strategic actions to achieve a sustainable future. ...
Debate over how to recognize and understand change and continuity has long animated the field of International Relations. This Element brings norm-oriented and practice-oriented approaches into conversation to advance a wide-ranging account of change and continuity in global politics. It elaborates four scenarios in which norm and practice interactions produce change and continuity: relative continuity and a tight coupling of practices and norms; change through accidental incompetence; new competencies that create disjunctures; and change through deliberate contestation. It demonstrates the utility of the approach using empirical illustrations from the fields of global health and development The Element also shows the wider applicability of the scenarios for major contemporary debates about change in global governance and security. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This chapter describes the economic Growth Trap wherein the West has fallen. It explains why and how neoliberal capitalism depends on everlasting economic growth. This has resulted in ecological overshoot, of which climate change is a symptom. The Growth Trap has also fostered socio-political instability, rising inequality, job insecurity, and ruptured the social fabric. This chapter also introduces the Great Stagnation, which, since the 1970s, has been slowly ending the Great Take-Off and Great Acceleration described in Chap. 1. While the Great Stagnation could reduce ecological overshoot in the West, the increasingly zero-sum economy that it is resulting in brings its own hazards. More specifically, as this book shows, under the pressure of the Growth Trap, the Great Stagnation will accentuate the dangers of the decline in oil, the rise of the Oligarchy and of the Permanent War Economy. It creates a dilemma of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” as far as economic growth is concerned.
Non-technical summary
The polycrisis, an inadvertent peril of our own making, poses an existential threat to the modern world. Given humanity's innate desire to live safely, and to prosper, what explains this self-inflicted danger? Root causes of the polycrisis are both material and ideational. This essay focuses on the latter, exploring the impact of an exaggerated sense of human exceptionalism which legitimizes profligate behavior and releases us from accountability to each other, to the planet, and to future generations.
Technical summary
The polycrisis presents an existential threat to modern civilization on Earth. Neither desirable nor purposeful, it is an inadvertent consequence of collective human agency, a dangerous phenomenon with the power to override prudent, morally sound behavior. Emerging from the totality of multiple global stresses interlinked by myriad causal pathways, the polycrisis is a coherent entity which can, and does, amplify and accelerate local crises (such as supply chain disruptions, political uprisings and war, or natural catastrophes) into a cascading storm of alarming scale and intensity. I argue that these material features of the polycrisis find their origin in and are authorized by an underlying ideational stratum – a belief system – which lends legitimacy and strong forward momentum to the creation of entangled component stresses. This stratum features an exaggerated sense of human exceptionalism, an anthropocentric zeitgeist, and a licentious conception of freedom, all of which have released us from accountability to each other, to ethical forbearance, to future generations, and to the planet.
Social media summary
Multiple entangled stresses threaten our world. This ‘polycrisis’ emerges from the pathology of human exceptionalism.
Non-technical summary
Advocates of the concept of polycrisis show that our world faces many interconnected risks that can compound and reinforce each other. Marxist critics, on the contrary, argue that polycrisis advocates have not yet given sufficient attention to the role of capitalism as a root cause of these intersecting crises. This paper agrees with these critics. But I also argue that it is possible to develop an alternative approach to polycrisis analysis rooted in the traditions of Marxism and neo-Gramscian theory. The paper applies this approach to analyze the European Union's ongoing polycrisis and sketch out its possible futures.
Technical summary
Advocates of the term polycrisis often claim that contemporary crises cannot be reduced to a single driver or dominant contradiction, forming instead a complex multiplicity of inter-systemic shocks. Marxist critics, on the contrary, claim that this approach, by framing contemporary crises as disparate and merely contingently connected, obscures the capitalist roots of contemporary crises. I agree with these critics to a point, though I argue that polycrisis thinking is needed to deepen Marxist analyses of the inter-systemic dynamics of contemporary crises and their possible futures. Polycrisis thinking needs Marxism to deepen its analysis of the political economy of polycrisis, whereas Marxism needs polycrisis thinking to enrich its understanding of the political opportunities and constraints that these intersecting crises may create for counter-hegemonic movements. To synthesize the insights of Marxism and polycrisis analysis, I develop an approach rooted in complexity theory and neo-Gramscian political economy. Using the European Union's (EU) ongoing polycrisis as an illustrative example, I show how neo-Gramscian polycrisis analysis can highlight the constraints that neoliberal hegemony places on the EU's efforts to manage its intersecting crises, while also informing counter-hegemonic struggles aiming to navigate toward more desirable futures in Europe's political possibility space.
Social media summary
This paper combines polycrisis thinking and Marxism to analyze the current polycrisis and possible futures of the European Union.
In the wake of global crises, including climate disasters, pandemics, and regional conflicts, educational systems face numerous challenges, such as school closures and student displacement. This study focuses on the adaptation strategies of educational staff in provisional schools for displaced children in Israel during the Israel-Hamas war. Utilizing complexity theory, it explores how teachers and administrators manage high levels of disorder and other challenging conditions. The findings highlight the tensions between maintaining the existing order and adapting to crises, emphasizing the importance of autonomy in fostering adaptable educational environments for displaced students.
Militär, Rüstung und Krieg belasten die Umwelt und emittieren rund 5,5% aller Treibhausgase, die Klimaextreme und Ökozide wahrscheinlicher machen. Die Kriege in der Ukraine und in Gaza bewirken enorme Emissionen, vor allem für den Wiederaufbau massiv zerstörter Infrastrukturen. Diskutiert werden Optionen eines kohlenstoff-neutralen und resilienten Energiesystems und die Berücksichtigung und Reduzierung militärischer Emissionen in Klimaverhandlungen.\\
Environmental and climate damage caused by wars and geopolitical risks: Military, arms and war pollute the environment and emit around 5.5% of all greenhouse gases, making climate extremes and ecocides more likely. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza cause enormous emissions, especially for the reconstruction of massively destroyed infrastructures. Options for a carbon-neutral and resilient energy system and the consideration and reduction of military emissions in climate negotiations are discussed.\\
Daños medioambientales y climáticos causados por las guerras y los riesgos geopolíticos: El ejército, el armamento y la guerra contaminan el medio ambiente y emiten alrededor del 5,5% de todos los gases de efecto invernadero, lo que hace más probables los extremos climáticos y los ecocidios. Las guerras en Ucrania y Gaza provocan enormes emisiones, especialmente para la reconstrucción de infraestructuras masivamente destruidas. Se debatirán las opciones para un sistema energético neutro en carbono y resistente y la consideración y reducción de las emisiones militares en las negociaciones sobre el clima.
Can utopian realism constitute an antidote to today’s ‘pervasive atmosphere of capitalist realism’, as defined by the late critical theorist Mark Fisher? Through this article, a collaboration between a sociologist and a literary scholar, we argue that the answer to this question is a resounding yes. To substantiate our thesis, we conduct a ‘sociological exegesis’ of the best-selling science fiction book The Ministry for the Future written by the prolific US author Kim Stanley Robinson. The book, set in a quasi-present future, describes a multiplicity of successful transformative strategies implemented to address the ongoing climate crisis and, as the title of the novel suggests, preserve the future of human and non-human life on planet Earth. While still a fictional recount, we claim that the novel possesses a sociological quality since it showcases a unique approach to societal change that we label ‘utopian realism’. This approach combines top-down strategies with grassroots organising, technological solutions with back-to-nature projects, and ecomodernism with eco-spiritualism. We analyse the novel through the lens of contemporary sociological debates on the transformative power of utopianism as found in many science fiction books, movies and TV series. We are especially inspired by the work of Ruth Levitas, Mathias Thaler, McKenzie Wark, Lisa Garforth and Erik Olin Wright. Our conclusion is that The Ministry for the Future represents an attempt to move beyond the dystopian pervasiveness of capitalist realism and thus constitutes a much needed, albeit far from unproblematic, contribution to envisioning just and sustainable alternative futures.
The Great Transformation and the sustainability transformation require theoretical models of the future society and economy that can be found in theoretical analyses of modern capitalist society, political economy, critical theory of society, and interdisciplinary social and political ecology. The models include changes in nature-society interaction that become a knowledge source for sustainability governance. The bottleneck in all societal transformations in the history of human societies was the transformation of the societal energy systems. For the future, post-industrial society, the energy system will be one with combinations of regenerative energy sources, potentially with a dominant form of solar energy as the only practically unlimited energy source.
The Great Transformation is a process of transforming the global society and economy into a new one through fundamental changes in their structures, functions, and processes. Transformations of complex societal systems include the transformation of the economic mode of production and accumulation in modern society and of the societal relations with nature, which affect all members of the society, their modes of living, working, and consuming. The term Great Transformation was introduced by Polanyi to describe societal transformations in the history of human societies. The present transformation began in the 1990s with the discussion of sustainable development to convert the accelerating deterioration of the state of the Earth System and the worsening of the conditions of living for humans, animals, and plants.
Societal ‘crises’ are periods of turmoil and destabilization in socio-cultural, political, economic, and other systems, often accompanied by varying amounts of violence and sometimes significant changes in social structure. The extensive literature analyzing societal crises has concentrated on relatively few historical examples (large-scale events such the fall of the Roman Empire or the French and Russian Revolutions) emphasizing different aspects of these events as potential causes or consistent effects. To investigate crises and prior approaches to explaining them, and to avoid a potential small-sample size bias present in several previous studies, we sought to uniformly characterize a substantial collection of historical crises, spanning millennia, from the prehistoric to post-industrial, and afflicting a wide range of polities in diverse global regions; the Crisis Database (CrisisDB). Here, we describe this dataset which comprises 168 crises suggested by historians and characterized by a number of significant 'consequences' (such as civil war, epidemics, or loss of population) including also institutional and cultural reforms (for example improved sufferance or constitutional changes) that might occur during and immediately following the crisis period. Our analyses show that the consequences experienced by each crisis is highly variable. The outcomes themselves are uncorrelated with one another and, overall, the set of consequences is largely unpredictable when compared to other large-scale properties of society suggested by previous scholars such as its territorial size, religion, administrative size, or historical recency. We conclude that there is no ‘typical’ societal crisis of the past, but crisis situations can take a variety of different directions. We offer some suggestions on the forces that might drive these varying consequences for exploration in future work.
Prudent risk management requires consideration of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such potential futures are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even eventual human extinction? At present, this is a dangerously underexplored topic. Yet there are ample reasons to suspect that climate change could result in a global catastrophe. Analyzing the mechanisms for these extreme consequences could help galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform policy, including emergency responses. We outline current knowledge about the likelihood of extreme climate change, discuss why understanding bad-to-worst cases is vital, articulate reasons for concern about catastrophic outcomes, define key terms, and put forward a research agenda. The proposed agenda covers four main questions: 1) What is the potential for climate change to drive mass extinction events? 2) What are the mechanisms that could result in human mass mortality and morbidity? 3) What are human societies' vulnerabilities to climate-triggered risk cascades, such as from conflict, political instability, and systemic financial risk? 4) How can these multiple strands of evidence—together with other global dangers—be usefully synthesized into an “integrated catastrophe assessment”? It is time for the scientific community to grapple with the challenge of better understanding catastrophic climate change.
At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans, but at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals1,2. However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife3,4. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence. Here, we simulate potential hotspots of future viral sharing, using a phylogeographic model of the mammal-virus network, and projections of geographic range shifts for 3,139 mammal species under climate change and land use scenarios for the year 2070. We predict that species will aggregate in new combinations at high elevations, in biodiversity hotspots, and in areas of high human population density in Asia and Africa, driving the novel cross-species transmission of their viruses an estimated 4,000 times. Because of their unique dispersal capacity, bats account for the majority of novel viral sharing, and are likely to share viruses along evolutionary pathways that will facilitate future emergence in humans. Surprisingly, we find that this ecological transition may already be underway, and holding warming under 2 °C within the century will not reduce future viral sharing. Our findings highlight an urgent need to pair viral surveillance and discovery efforts with biodiversity surveys tracking species’ range shifts, especially in tropical regions that harbor the most zoonoses and are experiencing rapid warming.
Non-technical summary
Transforming towards global sustainability requires a dramatic acceleration of social change. Hence, there is growing interest in finding ‘positive tipping points’ at which small interventions can trigger self-reinforcing feedbacks that accelerate systemic change. Examples have recently been seen in power generation and personal transport, but how can we identify positive tipping points that have yet to occur? We synthesise theory and examples to provide initial guidelines for creating enabling conditions, sensing when a system can be positively tipped, who can trigger it, and how they can trigger it. All of us can play a part in triggering positive tipping points.
Technical summary
Recent work on positive tipping points towards sustainability has focused on social-technological systems and the agency of policymakers to tip change, whilst earlier work identified social-ecological positive feedbacks triggered by diverse actors. We bring these together to consider positive tipping points across social-technological-ecological systems and the potential for multiple actors and interventions to trigger them. Established theory and examples provide several generic mechanisms for triggering tipping points. From these we identify specific enabling conditions, reinforcing feedbacks, actors and interventions that can contribute to triggering positive tipping points in the adoption of sustainable behaviours and technologies. Actions that can create enabling conditions for positive tipping include targeting smaller populations, altering social network structure, providing relevant information, reducing price, improving performance, desirability and accessibility, and coordinating complementary technologies. Actions that can trigger positive tipping include social, technological and ecological innovations, policy interventions, public investment, private investment, broadcasting public information, and behavioural nudges. Positive tipping points can help counter widespread feelings of disempowerment in the face of global challenges and help unlock ‘paralysis by complexity’. A key research agenda is to consider how different agents and interventions can most effectively work together to create system-wide positive tipping points whilst ensuring a just transformation.
Social media summary
We identify key actors and actions that can enable and trigger positive tipping points towards global sustainability.
Integrated assessment is an analysis of a topic that integrates multiple lines of research. Integrated assessments are thus inherently interdisciplinary. They are generally oriented toward practical problems, often in the context of public policy, and frequently concern topics in science and technology.
This paper presents a concept for and some initial work towards an integrated assessment of global catastrophic risk (GCR). Generally speaking, GCR is the risk of significant harm to global human civilization. More precise definitions are provided below. Some GCRs include nuclear war, climate change, and pandemic disease outbreaks. Integrated assessment of GCR puts all these risks into one study in order to address overarching questions about the risk and the opportunities to reduce it.
The specific concept for integrated assessment presented here has been developed over several years by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI). GCRI is an independent, nonprofit think tank founded in 2011 by Seth Baum and Tony Barrett (i.e., the authors). The integrated assessment structures much of GCRI’s thinking and activity, and likewise offers a framework for general study and work on the GCR topic.
Significance
We show that for thousands of years, humans have concentrated in a surprisingly narrow subset of Earth’s available climates, characterized by mean annual temperatures around ∼13 °C. This distribution likely reflects a human temperature niche related to fundamental constraints. We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 y, 1 to 3 billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 y. Absent climate mitigation or migration, a substantial part of humanity will be exposed to mean annual temperatures warmer than nearly anywhere today.
Climate-related disasters are among the most societally disruptive impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Their potential impact on the risk of armed conflict is heavily debated in the context of the security implications of climate change. Yet, evidence for such climate-conflict-disaster links remains limited and contested. One reason for this is that existing studies do not triangulate insights from different methods and pay little attention to relevant context factors and especially causal pathways. By combining statistical approaches with systematic evidence from QCA and qualitative case studies in an innovative multi-method research design, we show that climate-related disasters increase the risk of armed conflict onset. This link is highly context-dependent and we find that countries with large populations, political exclusion of ethnic groups, and a low level of human development are particularly vulnerable. For such countries, almost one third of all conflict onsets over the 1980-2016 period have been preceded by a disaster within 7 days. The robustness of the effect is reduced for longer time spans. Case study evidence points to improved opportunity structures for armed groups rather than aggravated grievances as the main mechanism connecting disasters and conflict onset.
Abstract Two major reports assessing global systemic risks have been published recently, presenting large‐scale panel data on the risk perceptions of different key communities, most notably business leaders and global change scientists. While both of these global communities agree on ranking environmental risks the highest, followed by societal, geopolitical, technological, and economic risks, business leaders perceive the likelihood of most risks as lower than scientists. This gap implies vexing questions in relation to building a shared sense of urgency and facilitating collective action. These questions need to be addressed through new ways of co‐creating risk assessments and strategic futures analysis.
Significance
Achieving a rapid global decarbonization to stabilize the climate critically depends on activating contagious and fast-spreading processes of social and technological change within the next few years. Drawing on expert elicitation, an expert workshop, and a review of literature, which provides a comprehensive analysis on this topic, we propose concrete interventions to induce positive social tipping dynamics and a rapid global transformation to carbon-neutral societies. These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.
The risk of extreme climatic conditions leading to unusually low global agricultural production is exacerbated if more than one global ‘breadbasket’ is exposed at the same time. Such shocks can pose a risk to the global food system, amplifying threats to food security, and could potentially trigger other systemic risks1,2. While the possibility of climatic extremes hitting more than one breadbasket has been postulated3,4, little is known about the actual risk. Here we combine region-specific data on agricultural production with spatial statistics of climatic extremes to quantify the changing risk of low production for the major food-producing regions (breadbaskets) over time. We show an increasing risk of simultaneous failure of wheat, maize and soybean crops across the breadbaskets analysed. For rice, risks of simultaneous adverse climate conditions have decreased in the recent past, mostly owing to solar radiation changes favouring rice growth. Depending on the correlation structure between the breadbaskets, spatial dependence between climatic extremes globally can mitigate or aggravate the risks for the global food production. Our analysis can provide the basis for more efficient allocation of resources to contingency plans and/or strategic crop reserves that would enhance the resilience of the global food system. The risk of concurrent climate extremes affecting breadbasket regions is increasing with climate change, with wheat, maize and soybean crops at risk of simultaneous failure. Correlation between the regions and climate extremes should be considered to ensure food security in the future.
The potential consequences of cross-scale systemic environmental risks with global effects are increasing. We argue that current descriptions of globally connected systemic risk poorly capture the role of human–environment interactions. This creates a bias towards solutions that ignore the new realities of the Anthropocene. We develop an integrated concept of what we denote Anthropocene risk—that is, risks that: emerge from human-driven processes; interact with global social–ecological connectivity; and exhibit complex, cross-scale relationships. To illustrate this, we use four cases: moisture recycling teleconnections, aquaculture and stranded assets, biome migration in the Sahel, and sea-level rise and megacities. We discuss the implications of Anthropocene risk across several research frontiers, particularly in the context of supranational power, environmental and social externalities and possible future Anthropocene risk governance. We conclude that decision makers must navigate this new epoch with new tools, and that Anthropocene risk contributes conceptual guidance towards a more sustainable and just future.
Over the past decade, the EU has faced multiple crises. In the introduction to this collection, we argue that this ‘polycrisis’ is fracturing the European political system across multiple, simultaneous rifts, thereby creating a ‘polycleavage’. As a consequence, the EU is caught in a ‘politics trap’. Similar to other decision traps, this multi-level politics trap is dysfunctional, but difficult to escape altogether. The contributions to this collection analyze the mechanisms of the politics trap, its relationship to the European polycrisis, and the strategies pursued by a plurality of actors (the Commission, the European Parliament, national governments) to cope with its constraints. In light of this analysis, we argue that comprehensive, ‘grand’ bargains are for the moment out of reach, but national and supranational actors can find ways of ‘relaxing’ the politics trap and in so doing perhaps lay the foundations for more ambitious future solutions.
Significance
Ethnic divides play a major role in many armed conflicts around the world and might serve as predetermined conflict lines following rapidly emerging societal tensions arising from disruptive events like natural disasters. We find evidence in global datasets that risk of armed-conflict outbreak is enhanced by climate-related disaster occurrence in ethnically fractionalized countries. Although we find no indications that environmental disasters directly trigger armed conflicts, our results imply that disasters might act as a threat multiplier in several of the world’s most conflict-prone regions.
Recent global crises reveal an emerging pattern of causation that could increasingly characterize the birth and progress of future global crises. A conceptual framework identifies this pattern's deep causes, intermediate processes, and ultimate outcomes. The framework shows how multiple stresses can interact within a single social-ecological system to cause a shift in that system's behavior, how simultaneous shifts of this kind in several largely discrete social-ecological systems can interact to cause a far larger intersystemic crisis, and how such a larger crisis can then rapidly propagate across multiple system boundaries to the global scale. Case studies of the 2008-2009 financial-energy and food-energy crises illustrate the framework. Suggestions are offered for future research to explore further the framework's propositions.
In this article, we discuss the increasing interdependence of societies, focusing specifically on issues of systemic instability and fragility generated by the new and unprecedented level of connectedness and complexity resulting from globalization. We define the global system as a set of tightly coupled interactions that allow for the continued flow of information, capital, goods, services, and people. Using the general concepts of globality, complexity, networks, and the nature of risk, we analyze case studies of trade, finance, infrastructure, climate change, and public health to develop empirical support for the concept of global systemic risk. We seek to identify and describe the sources and nature of such risks and methods of thinking about risks that may inform future academic research and policy-making decisions.
To characterize the change in frequency of infectious disease outbreaks over time worldwide, we encoded and analysed a novel 33-year dataset (1980-2013) of 12,102 outbreaks of 215 human infectious diseases, comprising more than 44 million cases occuring in 219 nations. We merged these records with ecological characteristics of the causal pathogens to examine global temporal trends in the total number of outbreaks, disease richness (number of unique diseases), disease diversity (richness and outbreak evenness) and per capita cases. Bacteria, viruses, zoonotic diseases (originating in animals) and those caused by pathogens transmitted by vector hosts were responsible for the majority of outbreaks in our dataset. After controlling for disease surveillance, communications, geography and host availability, we find the total number and diversity of outbreaks, and richness of causal diseases increased significantly since 1980 (p < 0.0001). When we incorporate Internet usage into the model to control for biased reporting of outbreaks (starting 1990), the overall number of outbreaks and disease richness still increase significantly with time (p < 0.0001), but per capita cases decrease significantly ( p = 0.005). Temporal trends in outbreaks differ based on the causal pathogen's taxonomy, host requirements and transmission mode. We discuss our preliminary findings in the context of global disease emergence and surveillance.
One of the most feared events in banking is the cry of systemic risk. It matches the fear of a cry of fire in a crowded theater or other gatherings. But unlike "fire," the term "systemic risk" is less clearly defined. Moreover, unlike fire fighters, who are rarely accused of sparking or spreading rather than extinguishing fires, bank regulators have at times been accused of, albeit unintentionally, contributing to rather than retarding systemic risk. This paper discusses the alternative definitions and sources of systemic risk, reviews briefly the historical evidence of systemic risk in banking, describes how financial markets have traditionally protected themselves from systemic risk, evaluates the regulations adopted by bank regulators to reduce both the probability of systemic risk and the damage caused by it if and when it may occur, and makes recommendations for efficiently curtailing systemic risk in banking. I Systemic Risk
Today's strongly connected, global networks have produced highly interdependent systems that we do not understand and cannot control well. These systems are vulnerable to failure at all scales, posing serious threats to society, even when external shocks are absent. As the complexity and interaction strengths in our networked world increase, man-made systems can become unstable, creating uncontrollable situations even when decision-makers are well-skilled, have all data and technology at their disposal, and do their best. To make these systems manageable, a fundamental redesign is needed. A 'Global Systems Science' might create the required knowledge and paradigm shift in thinking.
Tipping points in complex systems may imply risks of unwanted collapse, but also opportunities for positive change. Our capacity
to navigate such risks and opportunities can be boosted by combining emerging insights from two unconnected fields of research.
One line of work is revealing fundamental architectural features that may cause ecological networks, financial markets, and
other complex systems to have tipping points. Another field of research is uncovering generic empirical indicators of the
proximity to such critical thresholds. Although sudden shifts in complex systems will inevitably continue to surprise us,
work at the crossroads of these emerging fields offers new approaches for anticipating critical transitions.
The aim of this paper is to provide a conceptual basis for the systematic treatment of uncertainty in model-based decision support activities such as policy analysis, integrated assessment and risk assessment. It focuses on the uncertainty perceived from the point of view of those providing information to support policy decisions (i.e., the modellers’ view on uncertainty) – uncertainty regarding the analytical outcomes and conclusions of the decision support exercise. Within the regulatory and management sciences, there is neither commonly shared terminology nor full agreement on a typology of uncertainties. Our aim is to synthesise a wide variety of contributions on uncertainty in model-based decision support in order to provide an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for systematic uncertainty analysis. To that end we adopt a general definition of uncertainty as being any deviation from the unachievable ideal of completely deterministic knowledge of the relevant system. We further propose to discriminate among three dimensions of uncertainty: location, level and nature of uncertainty, and we harmonise existing typologies to further detail the concepts behind these three dimensions of uncertainty.We propose an uncertainty matrix as a heuristic tool to classify and report the various dimensions of uncertainty, thereby providing a conceptual framework for better communication among analysts as well as between them and policymakers and stakeholders. Understanding the various dimensions of uncertainty helps in identifying, articulating, and prioritising critical uncertainties, which is a crucial step to more adequate acknowledgement and treatment of uncertainty in decision support endeavours and more focused research on complex, inherently uncertain, policy issues.
Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold, leading to substantial Earth system impacts. Synthesizing paleoclimate, observational, and model-based studies, we provide a revised shortlist of global "core" tipping elements and regional "impact" tipping elements and their temperature thresholds. Current global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. Several tipping points may be triggered in the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current policy trajectories. This strengthens the evidence base for urgent action to mitigate climate change and to develop improved tipping point risk assessment, early warning capability, and adaptation strategies.
The COVID-19 pandemic poses fundamental challenges to the ways that the discipline of International Relations makes sense of our world. Framing the pandemic as both a social disaster and as part of an ongoing polycrisis, this work argues that existing responses to COVID-19 are, whatever their insights, partial and limited, predicated on assumptions about how we know the world now shown to be problematic. This situation calls less for some defined incremental change and more for a period of uncomfortable disciplinary reflection on the boundaries, purposes and value structures that shape IR.
Modern societies are confronted with ‘systemic risks’ which challenge conventional risk analysis and management. The phrase ‘systemic risks’ denotes risk phenomena which are exceedingly complex and interdependent. Systemic risks originate in tightly coupled systems. They are characterised by cascading effects, tipping points and non-linear developments. Furthermore, compared to their potential impacts, they often lack proportional public awareness and adequate policies. Conventional risk management struggles with these challenges. Yet many threats to modern society, such as financial crises and the impacts of anthropogenic climate change, match these attributes. This article investigates the concept of systemic risks and raises questions for governance. The concept of inclusive risk governance serves as a guiding principle. In particular, the article draws on the Risk Governance Framework by the International Risk Governance Council to address the challenges of systemic risks.
Much of the Earth’s biosphere has been appropriated for the production of harvestable biomass in the form of food, fuel and fibre. Here we show that the simplification and intensification of these systems and their growing connection to international markets has yielded a global production ecosystem that is homogenous, highly connected and characterized by weakened internal feedbacks. We argue that these features converge to yield high and predictable supplies of biomass in the short term, but create conditions for novel and pervasive risks to emerge and interact in the longer term. Steering the global production ecosystem towards a sustainable trajectory will require the redirection of finance, increased transparency and traceability in supply chains, and the participation of a multitude of players, including integrated ‘keystone actors’ such as multinational corporations. This Perspective examines the global production ecosystem through the lenses of connectivity, diversity and feedback, and proposes measures that will increase its stability and sustainability.
Cascading effects of regime shifts
The potential for regime shifts and critical transitions in ecological and Earth systems, particularly in a changing climate, has received considerable attention. However, the possibility of interactions between such shifts is poorly understood. Rocha et al. used network analysis to explore whether critical transitions in ecosystems can be coupled with each other, even when far apart (see the Perspective by Scheffer and van Nes). They report different types of potential cascading effects, including domino effects and hidden feedbacks, that can be prevalent in different systems. Such cascading effects can couple the dynamics of regime shifts in distant places, which suggests that the interactions between transitions should be borne in mind in future forecasts.
Science , this issue p. 1379 ; see also p. 1357
While most OECD countries have been rather successful in reducing risks to human lives, health, and the quality of the environment, the record for new global risks such as climate change, pandemics, financial breakdowns, and social inequality is much less convincing. This is the challenge of systemic risks. Since the global financial crisis, it has received rapidly growing attention. However, considerable conceptual confusion mars research on and practical responses to this challenge. We undertake an effort of conceptual clarification, starting with the paradigmatic example of the financial crisis. This leads to a view of global systems as involving an interplay between micro- and macrodynamics internal to the system, with the system simultaneously interacting with its environment. Such dynamics typically show periods of stability, punctuated by situations opening up several possible futures. Alternative global futures, like other prospects, constitute risks for an agent if she considers some of these futures as less desirable than others. Agents may have lexicographic preferences over futures they would like to avoid, so as to consider some futures as just undesirable, but others as catastrophic. If an agent expects some of the relevant futures at a bifurcation point of a global system to be catastrophic in this sense, they are faced with a systemic risk.
The American version of capitalism is no longer dominant around the world. In the next decade, developing countries are likely to continue to trade the flexibility and efficiency associated with the free-market model for domestic policies meant to ensure greater resilience in the face of competitive pressures and global economic trauma.
In 1177 B.C., marauding groups known only as the "Sea Peoples" invaded Egypt. The pharaoh's army and navy managed to defeat them, but the victory so weakened Egypt that it soon slid into decline, as did most of the surrounding civilizations. After centuries of brilliance, the civilized world of the Bronze Age came to an abrupt and cataclysmic end. Kingdoms fell like dominoes over the course of just a few decades. No more Minoans or Mycenaeans. No more Trojans, Hittites, or Babylonians. The thriving economy and cultures of the late second millennium B.C., which had stretched from Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia, suddenly ceased to exist, along with writing systems, technology, and monumental architecture. But the Sea Peoples alone could not have caused such widespread breakdown. How did it happen? In this major new account of the causes of this "First Dark Ages," Eric Cline tells the gripping story of how the end was brought about by multiple interconnected failures, ranging from invasion and revolt to earthquakes, drought, and the cutting of international trade routes. Bringing to life the vibrant multicultural world of these great civilizations, he draws a sweeping panorama of the empires and globalized peoples of the Late Bronze Age and shows that it was their very interdependence that hastened their dramatic collapse and ushered in a dark age that lasted centuries. A compelling combination of narrative and the latest scholarship, 1177 B.C. sheds new light on the complex ties that gave rise to, and ultimately destroyed, the flourishing civilizations of the Late Bronze Age-and that set the stage for the emergence of classical Greece.
This groundbreaking book represents the most systematic examination to date of the often-invoked but rarely examined declaration that "history matters." Most contemporary social scientists unconsciously take a "snapshot" view of the social world. Yet the meaning of social events or processes is frequently distorted when they are ripped from their temporal context. Paul Pierson argues that placing politics in time--constructing "moving pictures" rather than snapshots--can vastly enrich our understanding of complex social dynamics, and greatly improve the theories and methods that we use to explain them. Politics in Time opens a new window on the temporal aspects of the social world. It explores a range of important features and implications of evolving social processes: the variety of processes that unfold over significant periods of time, the circumstances under which such different processes are likely to occur, and above all, the significance of these temporal dimensions of social life for our understanding of important political and social outcomes. Ranging widely across the social sciences, Pierson's analysis reveals the high price social science pays when it becomes ahistorical. And it provides a wealth of ideas for restoring our sense of historical process. By placing politics back in time, Pierson's book is destined to have a resounding and enduring impact on the work of scholars and students in fields from political science, history, and sociology to economics and policy analysis.
Reinhart Koselleck is among the most original German theorists of history and historiography. His international reputation is due in part to his contributions as theorist and editor of the remarkable lexicon Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (GG). The GG is an exceptional reference work that goes far towards realizing Koselleck's program and distinctive version of Begriffsgeschichte (the history of concepts, conceptual history). What is presented here is a translation in full of Koselleck's own entry on Krise (crisis). Few articles in the GG demonstrate more successfully Koselleck's theoretical concerns, his method, and innovative use of sources.
Hierarchies and adaptive cycles comprise the basis of ecosystems and social-ecological systems across scales. Together they form a panarchy. The panarchy describes how a healthy system can invent and experiment, benefiting from inventions that create opportunity while being kept safe from those that destabilize because of their nature or excessive exuberance. Each level is allowed to operate at its own pace, protected from above by slower, larger levels but invigorated from below by faster, smaller cycles of innovation. The whole panarchy is therefore both creative and conserving. The interactions between cycles in a panarchy combine learning with continuity. An analysis of this process helps to clarify the meaning of "sustainable development." Sustainability is the capacity to create, test, and maintain adaptive capability. Development is the process of creating, testing, and maintaining opportunity. The phrase that combines the two, "sustainable development," thus refers to the goal of fostering adap
What is “power”? Most people have an intuitive notion of what it means. But scientists have not yet formulated a statement of the concept of power that is rigorous enough to be of use in the systematic study of this important social phenomenon. Power is here defined in terms of a relation between people, and is expressed in simple symbolic notation. From this definition is developed a statement of power comparability, or the relative degree of power held by two or more persons. With these concepts it is possible for example, to rank members of the United States Senate according to their “power” over legislation on foreign policy and on tax and fiscal policy.
Complex networks have been studied intensively for a decade, but research still focuses on the limited case of a single, non-interacting network. Modern systems are coupled together and therefore should be modelled as interdependent networks. A fundamental property of interdependent networks is that failure of nodes in one network may lead to failure of dependent nodes in other networks. This may happen recursively and can lead to a cascade of failures. In fact, a failure of a very small fraction of nodes in one network may lead to the complete fragmentation of a system of several interdependent networks. A dramatic real-world example of a cascade of failures ('concurrent malfunction') is the electrical blackout that affected much of Italy on 28 September 2003: the shutdown of power stations directly led to the failure of nodes in the Internet communication network, which in turn caused further breakdown of power stations. Here we develop a framework for understanding the robustness of interacting networks subject to such cascading failures. We present exact analytical solutions for the critical fraction of nodes that, on removal, will lead to a failure cascade and to a complete fragmentation of two interdependent networks. Surprisingly, a broader degree distribution increases the vulnerability of interdependent networks to random failure, which is opposite to how a single network behaves. Our findings highlight the need to consider interdependent network properties in designing robust networks.
Are We Headed toward a "Polycrisis
- Daniel Drezner
Dismissing the Term "Polycrisis" Has One Inevitable Consequence -Reality Always Bites
- Thomas Homer-Dixon
International Science Council [ISC], United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction [UNDRR], and Risk Knowledge Action Network [RISK KAN]. 2022. ISC-UNDRR-RISK KAN Briefing Note on Systemic Risk
- G Ikenberry
So We're in a Polycrisis. Is That Even a Thing?
- Andreas Kluth
Making Sense of Risk in an Interconnected World
- Irving Low
Globalization's Wrong Turn: And How It Hurt America
- Dani Rodrik
Why "Polycrisis" Was the Buzzword of Day 1 in Davos
- Yasmeen Serhan
The Great Climate Migration
- Abrahm Lustgarten
How to Think about Policy in a Polycrisis
- Martin Wolf
World Bank-IMF Meetings Are the Last Stop Before a Coming Economic Storm
- Lawrence H Summers
Defining Polycrisis -from Crisis Pictures to the Crisis Matrix
- Adam Tooze
How Many Shocks Can the World Take?
- Stephen Walt