Polycrisis Resource Library

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.

Towards a Theory of Coupled Sociopolitical Events-Planetary Boundaries, Crises, Policrisis and Earth System Syndromes

Orfeu Bertolami and Ricardo Elísio

This paper introduces a novel modelling framework to evaluate how specific sociopolitical events influence the Earth System and their interaction with Planetary Boundaries. The authors present an interacting matrix model…

Understanding Polycrisis: Definitions, Applications, and Responses

Sienna Mark, Samantha Holder, Daniel Hoyer, Rod Schoonover, and Daniel P. Aldrich

This paper compares conceptualizations of the term “polycrisis,” raising questions about the key aspects of different definitions while stressing a convergence in critical features. It conceives a polycrisis as a…

Global Food Security in a Turbulent World: Reviewing the Impacts of the Pandemic, the War and Climate Change

Donatella Saccone and Elena Vallino

The authors explore how the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia–Ukraine war, and climate change have jointly disrupted global food security. Drawing on recent empirical evidence, the paper examines the mechanisms through…

The State of Global Catastrophic Risk Research: A Bibliometric Review

Florian Ulrich Jehn, John-Oliver Engler, Constantin W. Arnscheidt, Magdalena Wache, Ekaterina Ilin, Laura Cook, Lalitha S. Sundaram, Frederic Hanusch and Luke Kemp

This paper presents a systematic bibliometric analysis of the expanding literature on global catastrophic risk (GCR) and existential risk (ER). Based on 3,437 documents, the authors identify ten major research…

Cascading Failure, Financial Network and Systemic Risk

Chuangxia Huang, Hualu Miao, Xiaoguang Yang, Jie Cao and Huirui Yang

This paper addresses the challenge of accurately measuring systemic risk by introducing a novel indicator, Expected Shortfall Rank (ESRank), which accounts for cascading failures and network effects often overlooked in…

The History of Bad Ideas: Polycrisis

David Runciman and Gary Gerstle

In this podcast, David Runciman talks to historian Gary Gerstle about how the idea of the polycrisis was originally conceived, what its current popularity reveals about our times, and whether…

Youth in the Polycrisis

Daniel Hoyer

In this webinar, historian Daniel Hoyer examines the concept of the polycrisis through a historical lens. He explores the lessons past societies offer for understanding today’s complex global challenges and…

Ability of Politicians to Act – Climate Protection in the Era of the Polycrisis

Simone Kimpeler and Lorenz Erdmann

This report examines five key societal and economic developments that significantly influence the ability of politicians to act in an era of polycrisis. These include: the global polycrisis as a…

Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations: Intertwined Crises, Multiple Vulnerabilities

Samuel Hill, Jeetendra Khadan and Peter Selcuk

This report examines the complex and compounding challenges facing economies in fragile and conflict-affected situations (FCS). It highlights how overlapping crises—such as armed conflict, institutional fragility, climate-related disasters, commodity price…

Polycrisis! Implications for Public Policy in the Global South

Gedion Onyango and Ishtiaq Jamil (eds)

This book explores contemporary public policy and governance in the Global South, offering comparative analyses and detailed case studies from Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. It examines…

About the Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:

  • Comment on the polycrisis as a concept and as a present global reality
  • Undertake similar analysis using different—but related—concepts
  • Analyze crisis interactions among multiple global systems

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.

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