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.

Echoes of Uncertainty: Reimagining Complexity of Global Risks in the Shadow of the Russian–Ukrainian Conflict

Mateusz Błaszczyk and Piotr Pieńkowski

The authors explore risk perceptions in Ukraine and Poland in the context of the ongoing Russian–Ukrainian conflict. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data, the research reveals significant differences in how respondents…

Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse

Luke Kemp

Luke Kemp explores the historical patterns and future risks of societal collapse, tracing the evolution of human societies from egalitarian hunter-gatherers to hierarchical empires dominated by extractive elites. He argues…

Coping with Persistent Disruptive Stressors and Polycrisis: Community-Based Policy Making and Local Empowerment

Norio Okada and Ortwin Renn

The authors propose a conceptual framework for governing polycrisis and systemic risks through a bottom-up, community-based approach. They introduce the “risk governance triangle”, linking persistent disruptive stressors, risk-absorbing systems, and…

Tipping Cascades Between Conflict and Cooperation in Climate Change

Jürgen Scheffran, Weisi Guo, Florian Krampe and Uche Okpara

The authors examine the complex interplay between climate change and security, offering a systems-based modelling approach to understanding transitions between conflict and cooperation. Drawing on empirical research and the case…

Understanding Polycrisis: Why Interconnected Disasters are the New Normal

Tanner Stening

In this article, the author explores how disasters such as pandemics, wars, and climate-related events are becoming increasingly interconnected, marking a shift toward what researchers describe as a polycrisis. Drawing…

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…

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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