Are we Headed toward a “Polycrisis”? The Buzzword of the Moment Explained

Noting that polycrisis was the key buzzword at the World Economic Forum’s January 2023 meeting in Davos, Daniel Drezner attempts to make sense of the concept as “the concatenation of shocks that generate crises in other systems that, in turn, worsen the initial crises, making the combined effect far, far worse than the sum of its parts.” He ultimately argues that “the notion of polycrisis might do more harm than good in attempting to get a grip on the systemic risks that threaten humanity” because (for him) it overestimates the novelty of the present situation, uses neo-Malthusian logic, and implies that nothing can be done.