The Political Economy of Crisis Management: Surprise, Urgency, and Mistakes in Political Decision Making

Abstract:     
This paper provides an overview of the politics of crisis management using a minor, but significant extension of the core rational choice models of political decision making. The focus of analysis is crisis management within democratic polities, although much of it will also apply to crisis management within private organizations and indeed for personal crises. The analysis has several general implications for the politics of crisis management and for designing routine procedures for crisis management. As demonstrated below, an important and unavoidable property of crisis management is an unusually high propensity for making policy errors. Standing procedures for dealing with crises should be designed with such mistakes in mind.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 24

Keywords: crisis management, ignorance, urgency, politics, public choice

JEL Classification: D70, D80, D79

Accepted Paper Series