Arjen Boin

Bio: Arjen Boin is an academic researcher from Leiden University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Crisis management & European union. The author has an hindex of 47, co-authored 158 publications receiving 8510 citations. Previous affiliations of Arjen Boin include Utrecht University & École Polytechnique.

The Politics of Crisis Management: Public Leadership Under Pressure

Abstract: Crisis management has become a defining feature of contemporary governance. In times of crisis, communities and members of organizations expect their leaders to minimize the impact of the crisis at ...

Preparing for Critical Infrastructure Breakdowns: The Limits of Crisis Management and the Need for Resilience

Abstract: Modern societies are widely considered to harbour an increased propensity for breakdowns of their critical infrastructure (CI) systems. While such breakdowns have proven rather rare, Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated the catastrophic consequences of such breakdowns. This article explores how public authorities can effectively prepare to cope with these rare events. Drawing from the literature on crisis and disaster management, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of traditional approaches to crisis preparation and crisis response. We argue that the established ways of organising for critical decision-making will not suffice in the case of a catastrophic breakdown. In the immediate aftermath of such a breakdown, an effective response will depend on the adaptive behaviour of citizens, front-line workers and middle managers. In this article, we formulate a set of strategies that enhance societal resilience and identify the strong barriers to their implementation.

Public Leadership in Times of Crisis: Mission Impossible?

Abstract: Crisis management (prevention, preparedness, response, and reconstruction) is a tough task for political and bureaucratic leaders. This article documents the persistent tensions between the expectations and realities of crisis leadership. It explores the popular notion that crises provide key opportunities for reform. The very occurrence of a crisis is then thought to expose the status quo as problematic, making it easier to gain momentum for alternative policies and institutions. We argue that the opportunities for reform in the wake of crisis are smaller than often thought. The prime reason is that the requisites of crisis leadership are at odds with the requirements of effective reform.

Crisis exploitation: political and policy impacts of framing contests

Abstract: When societies are confronted with major, disruptive emergencies, the fate of politicians and public policies hangs in the balance. Both government actors and their critics will try to escape blame for their occurrence, consolidate/strengthen their political capital, and advance/defend the policies they stand for. Crises thus generate framing contests to interpret events, their causes, and the responsibilities and lessons involved in ways that suit their political purposes and visions of future policy directions. This article dissects these processes and articulates foundations for a theory of crisis exploitation. Drawing on 15 cases of crisis-induced framing contests, we identify potentially crucial factors that may explain both the political (effects on incumbent office-holders/institutions) and policy (effects on programs) impacts of crises.

经验与教育 = Experience and education

Abstract: Experience and Educationis the best concise statement on education ever published by John Dewey, the man acknowledged to be the pre-eminent educational theorist of the twentieth century. Written more than two decades after Democracy and Education(Dewey's most comprehensive statement of his position in educational philosophy), this book demonstrates how Dewey reformulated his ideas as a result of his intervening experience with the progressive schools and in the light of the criticisms his theories had received. Analysing both "traditional" and "progressive" education, Dr. Dewey here insists that neither the old nor the new education is adequate and that each is miseducative because neither of them applies the principles of a carefully developed philosophy of experience. Many pages of this volume illustrate Dr. Dewey's ideas for a philosophy of experience and its relation to education. He particularly urges that all teachers and educators looking for a new movement in education should think in terms of the deeped and larger issues of education rather than in terms of some divisive "ism" about education, even such an "ism" as "progressivism." His philosophy, here expressed in its most essential, most readable form, predicates an American educational system that respects all sources of experience, on that offers a true learning situation that is both historical and social, both orderly and dynamic.

Thinking fast and slow.

Abstract: In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.