From Crisology to Polycrisis: A Genealogy of the Concept of Polycrisis

The author traces the intellectual history of the concept of “polycrisis” from Edgar Morin’s original theory of crisology in the 1970s to its widespread contemporary use after 2022. Drawing on Morin’s primary texts, a systematic review of 257 publications, and a multilingual bibliometric analysis covering fifteen languages, the study identifies several transmission pathways through which the concept evolved and spread. The article argues that while contemporary discussions of polycrisis often cite Morin, they generally do not retain the core theoretical elements of his framework, particularly its reflexive and transformative dimensions. Instead, modern uses tend to focus on systemic risk, cascading crises, and resilience. The author proposes new analytical tools, including the concepts of “qualitative substitution” and “second-order crisis,” to distinguish between these different understandings and to clarify how the term has shifted across disciplines and political contexts.