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The article considers the novelty and utility of the polycrisis concept, alongside the difficulties of addressing the polycrisis. It concludes that “the growing use of the term polycrisis is in itself encouraging. It demonstrates that, although the problems that form the current polycrisis are neither new nor surprising, our perception of them is changing. A […]
The Good News Hidden inside Today’s ‘Polycrisis’ Read More »
World Economic Forum Agenda writer Kate Whiting interviews Columbia University historian Adam Tooze about the polycrisis at the WEF’s 2023 Summit in Davos, covering such topics as the history of the term; the origins of the present polycrisis in the economic shocks of the 70s and 2000s alongside concurrent problems in politics, geopolitics, environment, and
This is Why ‘Polycrisis’ is a Useful Way of Looking at the World Right Now Read More »
This policy brief recommends that the European Union must shift from short-term crises responses to the long term systemic transformations required by a polycrisis era. It argues: “Today’s challenges require both anticipatory governance, long-term systems thinking and adaptive, agile decision-making. We must understand the real nature and root causes of the major crises we are
Transformation in the Poly-Crisis Age Read More »
The authors respond to criticism of the use of the word “polycrisis”, arguing that the world’s current crises are in many ways unprecedented and thus merit a new word and require new forms of analysis. They argue, “the past isn’t a good guide to our present and future. Too many basic parameters – such as
Dismissing the Term ‘Polycrisis’ has One Inevitable Consequence – Reality Always Bites Read More »
Building on an earlier post, Bo Harvey begins with the question “what might the popularity of [the term] polycrisis say about the weaknesses of current critical analyses of capitalism?” and proposes that the “conceptual breadth of both terms represents a broader crisis of reference in the concept ‘crisis’.” He then considers the role of crisis
On the ‘Polycrisis’ Part II: Philosophies of History & Crises in Political Thought Read More »
Asher Miller of the Post-Carbon Institute critiques Dan Drezner’s dismissal of the term polycrisis and his worry that it promotes fatalism and inaction. Miller counterargues that “only in understanding the true nature of our predicament and accepting the need for systemic shifts in virtually all aspects of the modern world can we find the agency
Is ‘Polycrisis’ the Right Word for Our Times? Read More »
Noting that polycrisis was the key buzzword at the World Economic Forum’s January 2023 meeting in Davos, Daniel Drezner attempts to make sense of the concept as “the concatenation of shocks that generate crises in other systems that, in turn, worsen the initial crises, making the combined effect far, far worse than the sum of
Are we Headed toward a “Polycrisis”? The Buzzword of the Moment Explained Read More »
Bo Harvey examines origins and recent popularity of the polycrisis concept, then rebuts critiques of the concept by Noah Smith and Guney Isikara. In response to the latter, Harvey problematizes the reduction of all the world’s problems to “capitalism” by noting the wide breadth of that term. “In other words, I want to argue that
On the ‘Polycrisis’ Part I: Issues in Abstract Conceptual Circumference Read More »
Andreas Kluth argues that the term polycrisis is unhelpful to solving the world’s problems because it captures nothing new. Human history is full of complex crises, interactions between them, and the absence of single causes and solutions. “My practical advice is to stop coining Greek neologisms and attack complexity with simple words. We have problems,
So We’re in a Polycrisis. Is That Even a Thing? Read More »
In his address to the World Economic Forum, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres proposed that “Our world is plagued by a perfect storm on a number of fronts”, including an economic crisis (involving slowdown, inflation, rising cost of living, and high debt), the lingering effects of the covid-19 pandemic (alongside ill-preparedness for the next pandemic),
Secretary-General’s Remarks at the World Economic Forum Read More »
