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Tidsskrift om international politik ipmonopolet.dk 18. udgave, februar 2013 pris 50,-
TEMA
KRISERNES TID Martin Marcussen A crisis, a crisis! My kingdom for a crisis Jørgen Bæk Simonsen Islam og liberale værdier: En krise i sig selv? Birthe Hansen Obamas sikkerhedspolitiske udfordringer Robert D. Kaplan Geography Strikes Back
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Redaktion Chefredaktør Jon Ahlberg
Temaredaktør
Nicolai Bech Kofoed
Udbliksredaktør Julie Holte
Redaktion
Daniel Møller Ølgaard Didde Zander Edith Endsjø Jonathan Tybjerg Kári Gunnarsson Miriam Nawaz Sofie Koefoed Stine Iskov
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Christian Daugaard Jacobsen
Illustration
Anne Sofie Nordlund
IPmonopolet
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Leder På kinesisk består ordet krise af to tegn; det ene betyder fare, det andet mulighed. Man skal naturligvis være påpasselig med at tillægge sådanne kuriositeter en dybere mening. Det kan være en historisk tilfældighed eller en sproglig teknikalitet. Ikke desto mindre bliver ordets dobbelttydighed ofte betonet i coach- og motivationslitteraturen, og amerikanske sværvægtere som John F. Kennedy, Condoleezza Rice og Al Gore har alle fremhævet betydningen af de to skrifttegn i centrale taler. Fælles for omtalen er, at dobbelt tydigheden som oftest knyttes tæt til nødvendigheden af menneskelig hand ling. Det synes med andre ord at være den menneskelige håndtering af en krise, der afgør, om den bliver domineret af farer eller åbner nye muligheder. Men hvilke forudsætninger har beslutningstagerne for at håndtere nutidens komplekse kriser? Spørgsmålet er aktuelt, fordi verden i disse år er udfordret af en række mega kriser, der i hidtil uset omfang er globale, sammenvævede og grænseoverskridende. Det giver ikke mening at betragte fattigdomskrisen i isolation fra den finansielle og økonomiske krise. Fedmekrisen i Vesten er forbundet til sult krisen i Afrika. Og når man ser på den globale klima- og ressourceknapheds krise, må man have potentielle sikkerhedskriser for øje. Parallelt med intensiveringen af de mange forbundne kriser i starten af det 21. århundrede er der fremvokset et sandt virvar af internationale institutioner, mellemstatslige aftaler og løsere transnationale netværk, der på lokalt, regionalteller globalt plan søger at adressere nogle af de udfordringer, der bl.a. fremkommer af kriserne. Krisehåndteringen er blevet institutionaliseret, og for mange af verdens crisis managers forekommer krisehåndteringen sikkert mere som business as usual end som en konstant undtagelsestilstand. Ikke desto mindre er krisehåndteringen konstant til revision, fordi det komplekse samspil mellem de mange forbundne kriser udfordrer etablerede dogmer og institutionelle settings. IPmonopolet sætter i denne udgivelse fokus håndteringen af de mange forbundne kriser. Vi stiller de store spørgsmål og beder landets førende eksperter om svar. Desuden dækker vi i Udblik en lang række aktuelle, internationale problemstillinger – fra geopolitik i Fjernøsten til en teltlejr på Vestbredden, fra udviklingspolitik i Tanzania til sikkerhedspolitik i USA, fra territorialudfordringer i Arktis til oppositionsbevægelser i Saudi Arabien. Rigtig god læselyst! Jon Ahlberg Chefredaktør
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Tema: Krisernes tid 7: Indledning af Nicolai Bech Kofoed 8: “A crisis, a crisis! My kingdom for a crisis: Crisis management in Denmark” af Martin Marcussen 14: “Eurokrisen: Mellem politiske reformer og folkelige protester” af Sine Nørholm Just 16: “Islam og liberale værdier: En krise i sig selv?“ af Jørgen Bæk Simonsen 18: “Bolig- og ejendomsmarkedet: Krisens nationale og internationale arnested” af Jens Lunde 26: “Reform af FNs Sikkerhedsråd - permanente løsninger eller ’the low hanging fruit’?” af Emil Nørgaard
foto: gawker.com
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foto: ap photo/ haraz n. ghanbari
Udblik 31: Indledning af Julie Holte 32: “Geopgrahy Strikes Back” af Robert D. Kaplan 34: “Obamas sikkerhedspolitiske udfordringer” af Birthe Hansen 36: “Mød den saudiske opposition” af Tore Hamming 40: “Guldbryllup: Udviklingssamarbejdet mellem Danmark og Tanzania runder 50 år” af Johnny Flentø 42: “Den Bløde Magts Port” af Joakim Lillie Garsét 44: “Åbent Arktis udfordrer Rigsfællesskabet” af Kári Gunnarsson og Johan Moe Fejerskov 46: “Refugees United: Et nødvendigt værktøj” af Nicolai Bech Kofoed
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TEMA
foto: michael fleshman/flickr
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Tema: Krisernes tid Vi er midt i en krise. Igen. EU er i krise. USA er på afgrundens rand. Det hele startede med finanskrisen. De seneste 10 år har vi desuden haft klimakrisen, Muhammedkrisen og terrorkrisen. For slet ikke at tale om tsunamien i Asien, jordskælvet i Chile, svineinfluenzaen, fugleinfluenzaen, Katrina, Sandy, Fukushima, Irakkrigen, Afghanistan, Syrien, Sudan, Congo og Mali. Plus den konstante hungersnød i Afrika. Man kunne fristes til at tro, at verden aldrig har været så ilde tilredt, som den er i øjeblikket. Pointen er, at det er lige omvendt: Verden har aldrig været bedre. Hvis vi kigger på menneskets historie, har indespærring, drab og tortur af oprører og politiske modstandere, som vi ser det i Syrien, fundet sted hver dag, altid, mange steder i verden. Tager vi udgangspunkt i Europa for 200 år siden, lurede der altid en krig om hjørnet, ofte med abnorme tabstal og dertilhørende mishandling og voldtægt af civile. Selv i fredstid var samfundet præget af frygt. Styreformen var som udgangspunkt diktatorisk. Nordkoreanske standarder for pressefrihed var reglen snarere end undtagelsen. Forsamlingsfrihed fandt primært sted i kirken. Den sociale mobilitet var ikkeeksisterende. Analfabetisme, tvangsægteskaber og børnevold var normen. Slaveriet levede i bedste velgående i USA, og kvinder blev stadig lynchet for hekseri. De, der overlevede den voldsomme børnedødelighed, døde af basale infektionssygdomme i en tidlig alder. Finanskrisen er utvivlsomt hård, og arbejdsløsheden er stor. Bashar al-Assad forvolder i sandhed forfærdelig skade på sin egen befolkning. Tsunamien i Sydøstasien fremstår som en af de værste naturkatastrofer i menneskets historie, og tabet af flere tusinde menneskeliv bør aldrig bagatelliseres. Ikke desto mindre har verden, særligt den vestlige, oplevet så mange store fremskridt, at vi har taget dem for givet. Over de seneste årtier har teknologi og globalisering tilmed løftet flere hundrede millioner kinesere, indere og brasilianere op i middelklassen. Digitale medier har faciliteret vidensdeling og forsamlingsfrihed på tværs af landegrænser i et bemærkelsesværdigt omfang. Menneskerettigheder og konventioner har lagt en ramme, som ingen af datidens krige og styreformer kunne leve op til. Kvinder og børns rettigheder, beskyttelse af minoriteter og religionsfrihed er værdier, der præger et stadigt større antal lande. Hvor lidt perfekt den nuværende verden end fremstår, har den aldrig været bedre. På trods af menneskehedens markante fremskridt, det historisk lave antal væbnede konflikter og demokratiets utrolige popularitet fokuserer vi dog konsekvent på kriser. Denne udgave af IPmonopolet omhandler dette paradoks. Derfor vender vi problemstillingen på hovedet og spørger: Har vi behov for kriser? Ifølge professor ved Københavns Universitet, Martin Marcussen, er svaret ja. Marcussens analyse angiver en række aktører, der i høj grad lever af kriser og ikke mindst krisebevidsthed i befolkningen. Med udgangspunkt i den pointe byder temasektionen i denne udgave på analyser af eurokrisen, finanskrisen, Muhammedkrisen og krisen i FN’s Sikkerhedsråd. Hvad er krisernes anatomi, og hvilken effekt har de på vores samfund? Rigtig god læselyst! Nicolai Bech Kofoed Temaredaktør
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“A crisis, a crisis! My kingdom for a crisis!”: Crisis management in Denmark Af Martin Marcussen In spite of the fact that Denmark seems to have been less impacted by international crises than many of its European neighbors, the crisis themes have never been as prevalent in Danish public discourse, as they currently are. To understand this paradox, we need to understand how the real-life crisis and the perceived crisis may differ. This requires us to move beyond the classical sense of crisis management where a crisis is something, which needs to be terminated. Instead it is needed to redefine the concept of crisis and crisis management to understand how different actors can thrive from a crisis, and how crisis management is not necessarily about terminating the crisis but about administrating it.
Denmark: A crisis-free Kingdom?
Denmark is a peaceful and quiet country surrounded by peaceful and quiet neighbors and calm waters. If we are to believe the non-governmental organization Transparency International (TI), the country is governed by some of the most reliable and trustworthy politicians and effective and honest civil servants in the world. Its multi-party parliamentary democracy is stable and inclusive, based on consensus building, informed decisionmaking, broad involvement and institutionalized inclusion. Furthermore, the Danish news media are among the most serious and professional in the world based on high ethical standards, self-discipline and an obligation to provide public services. As if this was not enough, Denmark belongs to some of the wealthiest countries in the world. Its open economy is dynamic, innovative and internationally competitive; its welfare state is universal and it guarantees world-class education, free access to all sorts of health facilities, a sophisticated transport and communication infrastructure and an equal distribution of wealth. Crime rates are low on all accounts and the objective safety of Danish citizens is extremely high. The country is one of the environmentally most friendly on earth, with clean production structures in farming as well as in industry, and a high level of general consciousness about the necessity to act in environmentally sustainable ways on an everyday level. Overall, its population is one of the healthiest, best educated, homogenous and well-informed on the globe. Social cohesion is high, and so is the level of social capital. In addition, the country and its population are on a good footing with its neighbors and most other countries in the world. Its international brand and recognition is high almost everywhere. On all accounts, the Danes have never been as wealthy, healthy and safe as they are today. In nearby places, vigorous political, social, economic and environmental struggles are being fought. In Belgium, an on-going political struggle concerns the survival of the unitary state. For months, its civil servants ran the country, while the elected political elite was unable to form a government. In Greece and Spain, youth unemployment may be as high as 40 percent. In Italy, the Transparency International Corruption Index paints a picture of a corrupt political and administrative reality. And in Great Britain levels of multi-culturality causes great troubles with racism, while Eastern Europe and Russia face environmental degradation. All of these situations seem to be very far from the Danish reality. On most, if not all accounts, Denmark is comparatively
less ridden by crises than many nearby countries, and has fewer issues that may stir crises.
Two Worlds of Crisis
To understand this paradox of crisis management in a crisispoor context, such as the Danish, two worlds of crisis need to be introduced as frameworks. They differ on their respective definitions of the outcome and functions of crises, as well as the imperative of crisis management. In the first world, which I refer to as the “stability-as-routine” scenario, crisis-managers are essentially expected to cope with and eventually terminate the crisis. In the second world, which I will refer to as the “crisisas-routine” scenario, crisis-managers essentially attempt to establish a broader sense of crisis with a view to obtaining narrow political, social or economic objectives. 1. Stability-as-routine According to the “stability-as-routine” scenario, much everyday praxis in a public sector has to do with maintaining predictability (Figure 1). The kind of civil servants that graduate from our universities have been trained to believe in regularity and planning. Indeed, if there exists a public ethos, a central element of it would be that stability basically is regarded as a citizen’s guarantee that everything is working just fine and that civil servants are acting as public servants. Stability enhances transparency and accountability. Policy routines do not pop up accidentally, rather they have been developed as a result of many years of reflection and gradual adaptation and, more importantly, they are primarily based on consensually shared ideas about public purpose. In such a context, stability is the norm of a policy cycle. The largest part of the activities undertaken in this context is based on standard operating procedures.
Figure 1: The first world: Stability-as-routine If stability is “the normal” then a crisis is seen as the abnormal. The crisis is evil in the sense that it challenges the fundamental values of stability, predictability, regularity, transparency and accountability. In this world, the crisis is exogenous to the policy cycle. It unexpectedly shows up and arrests the flow of the policy cycle and creates a sense of urgency and uncertainty. Established routines are no longer able to function adequately. In such a context, crisis management takes place post-hoc, i.e. after the crisis has occurred. It is all about putting an end to the crisis and re-establishing the normal of stability. Crises are critical junctures that should be managed and eventually forced to
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disappear with a view to restoring a system based on shared ideas. In such a process of crisis management, I will expect that there is little information available to analyze cause and effect of the crisis, and little time to save what is left of the normal polity. Crisis-managers when stability is the routine A crisis manager is the one that can pull out a threatening fire. Clearly, a crisis will help to define a real statesman if this person rapidly and decisively intervenes and takes the steering wheel of society and eventually leads the damaged ship toward the safe harbor of stability. Of course, the possibility exists that the crisis manager comes in too early, too late, does to much or too little or simply is just unlucky or incapable of altering the course of the crisis. In this case, the public approval of the crisis manager may drop radically, maybe even ending his or her career. Finally, in this world it is also clear to everybody exactly when the crisis has come to an end. Just as the beginning of the crisis can be readily identified, the end of the crisis can be recognized by the fact that a sense of normalcy has been re-established. I will expect this framework to adequately describe what is going on in a very large number of situations in which a crisis disturbs routine procedures in public administrations. When a right-wing lunatic kills almost 80 Norwegians in one afternoon, there can be no discussion that we are talking about a national crisis of extraordinary proportions. When a tsunami in Thailand kills a very large number of tourists, this too obviously constitutes a real crisis that will have larger consequences for politics and public administration. In these, and a very large number of other similar situations of crisis, we have already developed a vocabulary that can be applied to understand the crisis and define crisis management as an attempt to re-equilibrate the system and reestablish “the normal”. It is important to note that when I speak about reestablishing “the normal”, I do not imply that the public sector and public policy stand still or that the mentioned crises will lead to nothing if handled correctly. Crises such as those mentioned above would most likely lead to the establishment of a “new normal” which is nevertheless still based on a norm of stability and predictability. Situations such as those mentioned remain some of the most studied phenomena in crisis research. 2. Crisis-as-routine The focus of this article, however, is the second world: “crisisas-routine”. This world has received less attention in studies of crisis and crisis management, but I hypothesize that it is developing very rapidly and will probably contribute to change the political métier all together. The point of departure for this second world is the assumption that civil servants and elected politicians are in a constant search for legitimacy. Nobody wants to take the blame for unpopular and costly policy initiatives. Nobody belongs to the category of passionless machines comparable to the Weberian type of serving civil servants. Whenever we find an elected politician or a professional bureaucrat, we will expect that this person rapidly recognizes the immediate expectations that are linked to his or her role. These expectations are less defined by higher purpose or public values, and more by media agendas, organized interests and party political strategies. In addition, professional positions are not held for life. Career mobility across functions and sectors is very high. This goes for civil servants and politicians alike. More often than not, positions in ministerial hierarchies and parliaments seem to be stepping stones for other career positions. The speed of mobility and advancement can be seen as one of the reasons why there is a general desire for delivering political results very rapidly upon taking office and with very high frequency. The long-term per-
spective is giving way to short-term considerations. If results need to be achieved rapidly, democratic procedures sometimes become a nuisance. It is indisputable that if normal procedures are being followed in all details, a large number of arguments need to be articulated and listened to, investigations, analysis and even research need to be made, policy objectives and strategies need to be explained, instruments need to be implemented and modifications to the initial plans and compromises need to be made. In addition, there is no guarantee that the remuneration for all this deliberative trouble could be nothing but public blame and ridicule. Should the long and cumbersome democratic procedure actually lead to praiseworthy political results, praise would probably go to somebody else than the exact civil servants or politicians that have actually taken the trouble of carrying this through. It would most likely be a new generation of civil servants or even the political opposition who will enjoy the fruits of one’s own troubles.
Figure 2: The second world: Crisis-as-routine If time is short, and the number of steps in reform processes needs to be cut down, an obvious strategy would be to take the role as crisis manager. A crisis manager in this second world of “crisis-as-routine” is not one that makes crises disappear. A crisis manager in this second world is in the business of making a crisis appear or running it (Figure 2). Following the political scientist Paul t’Hart, who is an expert on the politics of crisis management, the fact is that “[t]hose who are able to define what the crisis is all about also hold the key to defining the appropriate strategies for [its] resolution”. As such, crises are endogenous to the normal policy cycle. In order to create a momentum for change, to reduce the number of actors that have a legitimate claim to be involved in decision-making, to speed up decision-making, to cut red tape, and to reduce control for accuracy, quality and even legality, the crisis manager can see all kinds of arguments in favor of talking up a crisis. A crisis is a carte blanche to set the agenda and a window of opportunity. Crisis-managers at work The two worlds of crisis discussed so far are not mutually exclusive. The claim in this article is not that there are no real crises out there worth paying attention to. The material foundation is strong. A threat of terrorist attack does indeed exist, people do loose their jobs as a result of the financial and economic crisis, and it is indeed possible to locate people who have been sick as a result of the bird flu. The claim is rather that these events can open a window of opportunity for administrative reforms and political claims that may seem to be out of proportion with the real threat. This is what the second world of crisis-as-routine is better able to grasp than the first world of stability-as-routine.
Politicians as crisis managers
Thus far in the argument, the elected politicians and the civil
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servants have been identified as obvious crisis managers. As mentioned, the relatively short careers of current politicians in parliament and government can help us understand their desire to achieve political results in the short term: as a result of which the elevation of crisis comes in handy. There is an additional factor, however, which may help us understand why politicians have an incentive to act as crisis managers. The argument is that the identity of being a politician has changed over the last couple of decades. If, in earlier times, consistent political identities required that elected politicians remained true to their election manifests and simply administered the social or national interest on that basis, requirements nowadays may be quite different. For a political identity to exist, it may no longer be “sufficient” to administer the social or national interest, rather what is needed in order to be able to identify oneself as a modern politician is one or more reforms of the existing polity. A “real” politician is defined by the fact that the person has a number of plans for reforming the world. The status quo is per definition not satisfying or realistic to uphold. Under these conditions, it is better to innovate than to simply administer things as they are. Coupled with the fact that time to react in most cases is short, the reform requirement is a huge challenge to any politician. For instance by securitizing health, transport, education, child care, international cooperation, third world aid, research and development etc., reforms can be formulated en masse, and some levels of change somewhere can be hoped for within the scope of the existing election period. The opposition, for its part, will be subject to many of the same conditions and, accordingly, be inclined to play the same game but from a different strategic position. As such, the political métier has changed somewhat from being a question about managing relatively stable social and national interests to being a competition about proposing a large number of reforms and build up resources in relatively volatile environments. For this the politicians need the crises. The legislation to curb terror in Denmark, and the manner in which it has been formulated and adopted, is an illustrative example of how the interpretation of crises can be decoupled from the real crisis. Already back in 1977, the Danish population was horrified by certain forms of terror. A young man placed a number of bombs in telephone boxes in a suburb of Copenhagen and brought these to explosion. He was caught and sentenced to five years in prison. In 1985, two bombs exploded in Copenhagen outside an American air-transport company and the Jewish synagogue. 32 persons were injured and one died. Again the Danes were horrified by the fact that terror had now come to Denmark. There were other incidences of the kind, but at that time, none of these led to a generalized sense of crisis among politicians, and none of these events were followed up by the adoption of new terror legislation. The terror threats were estimated to be negligible and not proportional with the adoption of new terror laws. Similarly, the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York in 1993 as well as the Oklahoma bombings in 1995 did not lead to any sort of crisis sentiment among politicians in Denmark. However, following the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, the situation was different. Although the attacks did not concern Denmark directly, Danish politicians worked up a crisis sentiment that cleared the way for an entire new anti-terror paradigm, which was modeled on American and British templates. A series of new laws were adopted with a hitherto unforeseen speed. Since then, it has been claimed in various contexts that the government exploited the generalized sense of crisis after 9/11 to adopt considerable anti-terror laws without going through the normal decision-making stages. Some of that legislation was later judged to be out of proportion with the real terror threat; in direct conflict with the fundamental
values of liberty, rule of law and personal freedom; and sometimes just not applicable in practice. Danish crisis legislation in this area is a case in point, but many other countries experienced similar developments.
Civil servants as crisis managers
Civil servants, too, are crisis managers in the sense of the second world of crises. A sense of crisis will necessarily require additional bureaucratic structures and procedures to be established. Is there a widespread feeling that fundamental values and even national security is at stake, new funds will most likely flow more quickly to the public administration. The interesting thing is that crisis-related functions, structures and procedures can be established very rapidly without profound investigation, and they seem to remain in place when a crisis has been solved or forgotten. From that perspective, crises clearly have bureaucratizing effects, but not only in the sense that bureaucracy is growing in size and costs. The bureaucracy is also entangling into a more complex and less transparent version. A major reason seems to be that a crisis almost automatically leads to a call for more coordination. Just as “change” and “reform” constitute plus-words for modern politicians, “coordination” is strongly needed in modern societies but also a plus-word in relation to the public administration.In the course of most crises, new horizontal working relationships are being made between different sectors and between layers of the public administration. A range of private actors can also be involved and add to the capacity of public institutions. Furthermore, new crosscutting and border transcending segments of crisis managers start to constitute an administrative layer on top of the existing bureaucracy. The health sector is an especially good example of a sector constituted by professionals who understand how to exploit a generalized crisis sentiment to build up additional bureaucratic structures and functions, and consequently also assuring new funding for the years to come. Internationally, generated health crises and pandemics, such as the birth flu, the swine flu, SARS and the mad cow disease have all resulted in national health plans and programs, typically after referral to instructions and manuals from international expert authorities embodied in the World Health Organization (WHO). Stocks of vaccines are being solicited and stored for use, disinfection-mechanisms are being installed in public spaces, and new alert mechanisms to predict and prepare for emergent and not yet existing crises are being installed. In the process of planning and building up these new structures and procedures, the civil servants willingly offer their help and advice. The same pattern can be traced in the military sector. When a new military crisis somewhere in the world is finding its way into the international and Danish political agenda, professionals in the sector conduct threat analysis, advice on measures to be taken, and consequently implement new plans and strategies. With a possible new threat and international obligations on the horizon, it is most unlikely that spending cuts are being asked for. The so-called peace-dividend, which took up considerable space in the public debate in the immediate aftermath of the cold war, has so far not materialized to any considerable extent. True, there is no existential crisis to talk about - in fact, never before has the threat level been so low in Denmark – but this has so far not resulted in any substantial reduction in the overall security sector including traditional military spending, as well as costs related to the police force and intelligence. For instance, a whole new security threat has been formulated in relation to piracy taking place outside the east-African coast. This policy field offers itself as a prominent area of investment and further bureaucratic build-up in Danish government.
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The media as crisis managers
In addition to politicians and civil servants, the media is a central crisis manager. Counting the number of times that the word “crisis” has been applied by the main countrywide newspapers in one or the other context illustrates that the crisis discourse, indeed, has become prevalent in Denmark. 150.000 112,500
time period. The paradox is that over the same period of time the number of reported home robberies has been considerably reduced! In essence, the objective risk of being exposed to a home robbery is negligible and stands in sharp contrast to the generalized fear that such an event may produce. Security businesses are exploiting the situation to sell security systems for private homes. In the middle of the financial crisis in which most businesses complain about low sales, the security business in Denmark is one of the fastest growing businesses.
Additional crisis managers
75.000 37.500 0 2000
2001
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2004
2005
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2007
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2009
Figure 3: The word “crisis” mentioned in the countrywide Danish newspapers per year, 2000-2009. Source: www.infomedia.dk Clearly, it is possible to identify a radical increase in the use of the word “crisis” in the years following the terror-attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001. In fact, we can identify an almost fifty percent increase in the use of the word from 2000 to 2001. However, it is from 2007 and during the following years that the major increase in the “c”-word takes place. From 2007 and onwards, the increase is driven by the climate agenda and the financial crisis. The frequency of the crisis hits is, of course, not necessarily a good indicator for the objective seriousness of the mentioned crisis. It does not in any sense indicate whether there is anything to worry about at all. Many interesting mechanisms can drive the use of particular concepts, some of which are related to actual problems, sometimes even alarming events, but there are also other mechanism at play, suggesting different forms of chain reactions and exaggerations. As regards the financial crisis, and the consequent economic crisis and the European debt crisis, although extremely serious in many regards, Denmark seems to be much less affected than the majority of the members of the Euro-zone. As mentioned earlier, compared to many other countries, Denmark remains a relatively peaceful and prosperous place to live. Rather, the increase in crisis hits in the news media can probably best be accounted for by recognizing that the media are crisis managers, who have an obvious temptation to frame all sorts of ordinary day-to-day events as “historical crises”. A crisis story, so goes the argument, sells many more newspapers than all other kinds of news stories. The word crisis seems to be less indiscriminately applied today in relation to all kinds of social events than just a decade ago.
Business as crisis managers
Private businesses have, just as politicians, civil servants and the media, realized that profit can be reaped from crises, and are then useful in an economic sense. Drug companies cannot sell their drugs if people do not realize that they basically suffer from all sorts of health problems. Consequently, eating disorders and smoking dependency can be interpreted as leading to crises that require political attention and in some cases even urgent treatment. This puts an enormous pressure on the health system. This goes for fertility treatment, which is included in the repertoire of treatments supported by public funding. But there are other businesses around that play the role as crisis managers with a view to cultivating a sense of crisis. Take the fast growing security business as an example. A recent Danish survey brought in Berlingske Tidende indicated that 41 percent of the Danish population feared to be exposed to robbery in their homes. This is a radical increase from eighteen months ago when 23 percent reported such a fear. Thus, fear in relation to this single form of crime has almost doubled over a very short
The field of crisis managers is not only limited to the narrow party political sphere, the media and business. Major agents in the business of talking crises up and down are the so-called non-governmental “do-good” organizations that focus on single issues such as the elderly, children, the environment, animals, immigrants, the sick, the poor, prostitutes etc. In the Western world, and increasingly in the rest of the world, the number of semi-autonomous single-issue organizations continues to grow, most often at the expense of political parties whose membership seem to shrink in size everywhere. Almost all of these organizations compete with one another for attention and finance. The battle has become tougher during recent years with the consequence that these groups have become increasingly more professional. Fundraisers and public relation managers are being employed, and they do what they do the best: story-telling. They tell the story about why it is, indeed, urgent that money is being allocated to precisely their field of interest. It is urgent because the elderly, the children, the environment etc. is presently in a state of unforeseen and urgent crisis. The logic is clear: why should anybody spend money on a cause and even sign up as a paying and active member of the concerned organization if nobody is in need? There are even more crisis managers joining the choir of crisismanipulators in Denmark. The final group to be mentioned here is constituted by all kinds of private and public researchers who, like the do-good organizations, have gradually been involved in tougher and tougher competition about scarce research funding. There are more and more researchers, making ever-more expensive research, which is financed by smaller and smaller amounts of funds for basic research, thus fund-raising is professionalized. Again, the logic is clear: research projects that do not present a guarantee for desired results seem to out-compete open-ended research projects which may, or may not, come to revolutionary findings. In addition, even the smallest research grant requires that the planned research talk to a “burning platform”. The project is seemingly talking directly to an identified crisis or a missed opportunity as a result of which it is “urgent” that funding is granted. In terms of example, religion and culture are themes that currently present themselves very well in these years. They are selling points in any kind of social science research application. The same goes for themes such as globalization, China and health that also easily lend themselves to a crisis narrative. In recent years, the tone replicated in research applications, reports and broader research dissemination has been adapted directly to the general desire for rapid and fundamental change of society.
The installment of a culture of anxiety
In sum, these various categories of crisis managers seem to constitute a societywide coalition that underpins the second world of “crisis-as-routine”. These examples illustrate three points of relevance to the overall argument made in this article. Firstly, objective crises may be quite different from the subjectively perceived crises. Perceived crises have a life of their own, partly or entirely decoupled from reality. Secondly, the difference between the subjectively perceived and objective crises may be
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partly explained by the way in which various political entrepreneurs – business, media and politicians - frame the relationship and see some advantages in managing crises. Thirdly, policy is sometimes being made on the basis of subjective fear, but only, of course, if this is prevalent at a more general societal level. Doomsday prophecies have always been with us, but they have probably never before been institutionalized as political practice. Uttered in the midst of a deep recession in 1933 an oft-cited phrase by American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, goes like this: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. It describes very well the relationship between the first and the second worlds of crises as conceptualized in this article. Being exposed to a real life crisis, fundamental values are at stake; uncertainty and urgency reign high, and leadership is expected. A re-equilibration of the situation is being asked for, a sense of normalcy is being sought, and the crisis must be terminated. This is what crisis management is all about in the first world of crisis. The argument here is not that this is somehow an easy or straightforward matter. Every country has its particular features. However, a crisis in this sense has a life of its own with a start and an identifiable ending. Most crises – health crises, security crises, legitimacy crisis, criminal crises, political scandals, natural disasters, economic recessions – as terrible and incomprehensible they can seem in the situation, are, literally and metaphorically, also providing an element of noise in the long run development of our societies. We should not fear this, Roosevelt would say, we should overcome this. It takes hard work and sacrifices, but it can be done. When a “real” crisis suddenly grows out of nothing we have a long tradition in the literature for studying the conditions under which crisis management takes place. What we should fear, however, is the installment of a culture of anxiety. This is what the second world of “crisis-as-routine” is referring to. According to this perspective, crises may be more or less tightly coupled to their material substance. Consequently, crisis management can be defined as a process in which crises are being dramatized or de-dramatized, and experiences from the last decade document that crises have been useful for many actors in a Danish context. I have argued that the crisis discourse has become increasingly prevalent in day-to-day policy-making. This may have consequences for the democratic and substantive quality of decisionmaking. The democratic consequences of this may be serious and affect different segments of society. On one level, it may split the population. In one group we can identify those who internalize the signs of crisis and thereby become increasingly anxious and even hostile towards change, innovation and development. In another group we find those segments of society who have lost their interest in politics and ignore signs of crisis and find it difficult to react to new challenges. They do not believe in politicians anymore, they have become decoupled from public affairs and deal with their own close world. Both groups are very difficult to govern. At another level, the quality of decision-making may deteriorate. When the speed of decision-making is accelerated, endless streams of reforms are being proposed, and urgency prevents thorough analysis, reflection, deliberation and compromise; normal democratic procedures are being sidelined. In Denmark, where collectivistic and egalitarian values are strong and a consensus-oriented policy style traditionally has been the norm, a securitized policy-making process stands in sharp contrast to what ordinary citizens would understand by and expect from a democratic process. The entire legitimacy of and trust in the Danish political and administrative system is based on an expectation that evidence-based decisions are being made.
The paradox identified in this article is probably not only a Danish phenomenon. There are other low-crisis contexts out there in which the crisis theme has come to play an important role in national politics and in which anxiety and a sense of vulnerability seem to grow rapidly in the population. At a European level, the crisis theme seems to go hand in hand with almost all major decisions and treaty revisions made over the course of the history of the EU. In 2010 there were more Europeans who claimed to mistrust the EU (45 pct.) than Europeans who claimed to trust the EU (43 pct.). The majority of the populations in the Scandinavian countries seem to trust the EU, whereas distrust dominates in countries such as Great Britain (64 pct.), Greece (60 pct.), Austria (55 pct.), Germany (51 pct.) and France (50 pct.). As regard the somewhat broader issue concerning the general image of the EU in the European populations, the proportion of those Europeans who thinks that the EU has a positive image has fallen from 52 pct. in 2007 to 38 pct. in 2010. The European case probably illustrates that the issue of crises, real or not, goes hand in hand with the issue of systemic legitimacy, diffuse support, and institutional trust. More often than not, a political system in which the crisis phenomenon has become endogenous to policy-making – the case highlighted with the second world of “crisis-as-routine” – the statesman effect of handling crisis management erodes, only to be replaced by anxiety and mistrust and the emergence of a plethora of public and private crises managers. Apparently, there is an upper limit for how much crisis a population can internalize. As for the European populations, anxiety is expressed in the fact that 60 pct. today think that their children will have a harder life than themselves, and only 15 pct. are convinced that their children will get an easier life. In France and Germany, 78 and 76 pct. of the population are convinced that their children will be worse off than themselves. Overall, with the point of departure in a relatively crisis-free context, such as the Danish, this article has conceptualized the basic concepts in a second world of “crisis-as-routine”. In that world, focus is on the incentives of various political actors to dramatize crises, thereby typically decoupling the objective substance of the crisis from the subjective sense of crisis in society. The internal development of crises in political life may indicate that the political métier is changing, possibly leading to unexpected consequences for the democratic and substantive quality of decision-making. The wider consequences of this for systemic legitimacy, diffuse political support, and institutional trust remains to be seen, but most probably there is a limit to how much crisis a population can tolerate to be confronted with.
Om skribenten Martin Marcussen er professor i international og internationaliseret forvaltning og globalisering ved Institut for Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet. Han forsker bl.a. i den internationale dimension i danske kriser og krisestyring og er redaktør og medforfatter til bogen Kriser, politik og forvaltning - de internationale udfordringer, udgivet på Hans Reitzels Forlag, 2011. Han arbejder i øjeblikket på et projekt om den nordiske diplomatimodel.
tidsskrift om international politik / ipmonopolet.dk / 18. udgave / krisernes tid side 12
tidsskrift om international politik / ipmonopolet.dk / 18. udgave / krisernes tid side 13