The Polycrisis Resource Library is a growing collection of media that help to understand polycrisis, develop strategies to address polycrisis, and build a field of polycrisis analysis.
Thomas Homer-Dixon and Johan Rockström argue that global crises are accelerating in their occurrence, amplifying in their effects, and synchronizing due to largely unseen causal connections between them. The result…
Economics commentator Noah Smith opposes the term polycrisis, arguing that it overestimates the interconnectivity and severity of contemporary crises. He further posits that there are buffers in place in most…
Cameron Hill discusses a “range of proposals to reform the international development finance architecture in ways that might alleviate some of the worst effects of the multiple global shocks for…
Samanth Subramanian contests the utility of the term “polycrisis” and the novelty of the present situation it is used to capture. Where Adam Tooze argues that the present situation is…
Highlighting the connections between economic and non-economic shocks to the world, Adam Tooze proposes that “A problem becomes a crisis when it challenges our ability to cope and thus threatens…
Stephen M. Walt considers a number of global shocks that have all happened in close temporal proximity to one another and are “overwhelming our collective ability to respond”: the breakup…
The author defines megathreats as “severe problems that could cause vast damage and misery and cannot be solved quickly or easily” (p. 4). “We are facing megathreats unlike anything we…
Ahead of the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Lawrence H. Summers and Masood Ahmed implore these institutions to avoid a global economic downturn by addressing…
The Polycrisis is a newsletter and a series of essays and panels exploring intersecting crises with a particular emphasis on the political economy of climate change and global North/South dynamics.
The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:
Though not exhaustive, the Library strives to present a diverse representation of views on different aspects of the polycrisis discussion, and will be updated as that discussion evolves. Search for resources with the keyword search bar, or by using the drop-down menus to filter for type of resource, global systems addressed, and key themes.
Politics Urgently Needs More Imagination. Competence Alone Will not Save us from this ‘Polycrisis’
Geoff Mulgan
Geoff Mulgan argues that the United Kingdom suffers from an “imagination gap” that impedes its ability to navigate multiple crises, manifest in short-sighted policies and over-reliance on past solutions. He…