In this week’s bulletin, Charlie discusses what a polycrisis is, what its characteristics are defined as, and its impact on business continuity practitioners and crisis managers.
The media and press are increasingly focusing on the new Trump presidency and its potential impact on the world. There is much speculation on what he will do, what he won’t do, and how his second presidency may play out. This week’s Economist cover has the headline ‘Trump doctrine: America’s new foreign policy’ on the cover, and the main article is ‘Donald Trump will upend 80 years of American foreign policy’. With his inauguration on Monday, we will likely see a shift in global politics and a period of uncertainty and change. In my research and reading over the Christmas holidays, I came across the word polycrisis and thought it might make a good subject for a bulletin at some point. I was aware of the term permacrisis and have used it in blogs to describe the risks we face as practitioners, but was not so familiar with the term polycrisis. As we stand on the brink of an increasingly dynamic world, I thought it would be helpful to clarify the meaning of the term, how it differs from “permacrisis”, and what it means practically for us as practitioners.
Polycrisis has been around for a couple of decades and the initial concept came from the French philosopher Edgar Morin and co-author Anne Brigitte Kern in their 1999 book ‘Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for the New Millennium’. Their focus, and most subsequent authors, used the word to refer to the global system and the challenges facing humanity. Morin first used the word to highlight interconnected global challenges, though subsequent users have adapted the concept to regional crises, global interactions, and long-term stressors like climate change and socio-economic inequalities. The word became a major buzzword at the annual conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2023 and the term featured in their annual report for the year. Their use of the term referred to potential shortages of natural resources including food, water, metals, and minerals.
Defined, “A global polycrisis occurs when crises in multiple global systems become causally entangled in ways that significantly degrade humanity’s prospects. These interacting crises produce harms greater than the sum of those the crises would produce in isolation, were their host systems not so deeply interconnected”.[ 1]
The characteristics of a polycrisis are identified as:
1. The impact of the polycrisis is greater than the sum of its parts.
2. Multiple crises occur simultaneously or overlap, and they interact with each other.
3. Feedback loops between the different crises create unexpected behaviours, events, and new dynamics and consequences not observed when considered in isolation.
4. A crisis may be amplified or accelerated by other crises.
5. There is a lack of clear boundaries between crises in time and space.
6. Different interest groups may have other interests, impacts, and concerns in response to the different crises.
7. Remediating one crisis may exacerbate another.
8. Polycrises are characterised by the simultaneous or sequential emergence of multiple crises, without any periods of stability in between. They differ from permacrisis in that they are not a continuous, unending crisis where one crisis leads into another, creating a sense of perpetual emergency but a polycrisis involves several crises happening at the same time, which are interlinked and exacerbate each other but there may be short periods between them of stability.
9. The absence of single causes and solutions as the crises arise from multiple causes and so cannot be solved with simple solutions.
10. Polycrises are taking part in an unprecedented world where there are new pressures, risks, and factors that have not been prevalent before, so we cannot look back to history to understand the present and use the benefits and learning from history to devise solutions.
So, as practitioners, what steps should we take to navigate the consequences of living in a world shaped by polycrises?
Recognise the limitations of risk management. I totally agree that we could carry out a risk assessment, and our programmes should address and mitigate the risks which have the largest impact and likelihood. If we are living in a world of polycrises there will be new risks, and risks will present themselves in different ways. We should therefore be prepared for risks and crises which we cannot anticipate. We should also embrace and carry out timely horizon scanning to identify emerging risks and impacts. We have to review risks with an open mind as the impact of a risk materialising may be different to what has happened in the past.
To respond to new and emerging crises we require a robust response framework documented in plans, and responders properly trained and regularly exercised to handle a wide range of incidents. In preparing our staff to respond to incidents, we need to make sure that they have tools and techniques which are appropriate for managing any incident, and our training and exercises should not focus on responding to just one type of incident.
We must recognise the psychological impact of prolonged response to multiple, never-ending series of crises. I have detailed in my bulletin, dated 16 August 2024, entitled ‘Why We Are Likely to See An Increase in Incidents Over the Coming Years’ that we are likely to see an increase in incidents in the coming years for a number of reasons if we are going to be faced with continual crises. In that case, we and those who respond from our organisations need to ensure that we look after our staff’s mental well-being and identify mental health issues before they become significant issues. This could be due to the pressure of one event or the cumulative effect of dealing with multiple incidents over time.
So, coming back to the inauguration of a new American president, there is likely to be considerable change in the international system. This will affect different geographical locations, systems, economies, and entities in different ways. If we recognise that change is coming, then we can increase our vigilance to identify early change that could impact our organisation, and ensure that our responders at all levels within the organisation are prepared to deal with a crisis when it occurs.
Further reading
- Mark, Sienna, Holder, Samantha, Hoyer, Daniel, Schoonover, Rod, & Aldrich, Daniel P. (2024). Understanding Polycrisis: Definitions, Applications, and Responses. Polycrisis Scoping Paper v3. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4593383
- Lawrence, M., Janzwood, S., & Homer-Dixon, T. (2022). What Is a Global Polycrisis? And how is it different from a systemic risk? Cascade Institute, Discussion Paper 2022-4. https://cascadeinstitute.org/technical-paper/what-is-a-global-polycrisis/
