Understanding and Measuring Polycrisis

This article features an interview by Antoine Le Bec with researcher Louis Delannoy from the Stockholm Resilience Centre about the concept of polycrisis and its growing relevance for understanding an increasingly unstable world. Delannoy defines polycrisis as the convergence and amplification of multiple crises that increasingly reinforce one another rather than diminish. He emphasizes that crises are manifesting more frequently and tend to magnify each other, creating complex feedback loops. His recent research shows that shocks vary significantly by region and often co-occur, highlighting the importance of understanding the interactions between these phenomena. Delannoy is currently working with 25 researchers on a new database to study the interplay between insidious changes such as democratic backsliding, antimicrobial resistance, and declining press freedom, and shocks. The goal is to identify explanatory mechanisms for crises and develop indicators to monitor these changes, recognizing that every indicator reflects an underlying worldview.