Helle Rydstrom, Guest editor of Crisis: Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives? Volume 12: Issue 3-4 (helle.rydstrom@genus.lu.se) Crisis appears to frame our world from the Covid-19 pandemic to climate disasters, financial recession, and wars. In public discourse, crisis is broadcasted seemingly indefinitely as one crisis is conflated with the other and underlying crisis reasons eschewed (Roitman, 2022). Not uncommonly, crisis is used as a rhetorical tool in political plans and models (Andersson, 2022), sometimes even to purport populist and extreme views (Hearn, 2022; Kaur, 2022). Crisis ..read more

Leland Harper (Lharper3@sienaheights.edu), Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Siena Heights University Much of the data collection on COVID-19 infection and its long-term consequences among particular race groups, thus far, has been privately funded and limited in scope. Few governmental agencies have funded, analysed or appealed in meaningful ways to race-based data related to any aspects of this pandemic. Effective policy relies on the most complete and accurate data available, especially regarding health, freedom and finance. Without complete data, policy makers’ work is compromised, and th ..read more

Jeff Hearn (jeff.hearn@oru.se) is: Professor Emeritus, Hanken School of Economics, Finland; Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, UK; and Senior Professor, Human Geography, Örebro University, Sweden One of the problems with talking about crisis is that the term is over-used, especially in newspaper headlines, and celebrity and sports pages. Against this, there are dire crises – of people, societies, ecosystems, and the planet. Indeed, as I write, there is threat of war in Europe – threatening the largest armed conflict there since the Yugoslav wars 1991-2001. The current threat ..read more

Photo by Laura Forlano, January 2021; Pictured: Artwork by Jessica Hargreaves, “Nunc tempus est” with reflection of artwork by Roya Farassat, 12 paintings from “Women Gilded” Series, 601Artspace, New York Laura Forlano is Associate Professor of Design at the Institute of Design (ID) and Affiliated Faculty in the College of Architecture at Illinois Institute of Technology, where she is Director of the Critical Futures Lab (lforlano@id.iit.edu) This blog post relates to the Global Discourse article Laura Forlano: Foreword We cannot rationalize our way out of a crisis – or, to be more exact ..read more

Global Discourse Editor, Matthew Johnson interviews Professor Philip Pettit about the implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic on government. They discuss the new special issue of Global Discourse on ‘COVID-19 and the Politics of Fear’, the three pillars of democracy and when government should act on public fears. Read the Themed Issue, ‘COVID-19 and the Politics of Fear’: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bup/gd/2021/00000011/00000003 Read Paul Faulkner’s original article, ‘Lockdown: a case study in how to lose trust and undermine compliance’: https://doi.org/10.1332/204378921X161066357820 ..read more

Image: Screenshot of ‘Arctic* Kaya Barry is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Griffith Centre for Social Cultural Research (k.barry@griffith.edu.au), Michelle Duffy is Associate Professor in the School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle (michelle.duffy@newcastle.edu.au), Michele Lobo is Lecturer in Human Geography, Deakin University (michele.lobo@deakin.edu.au) This blog post relates to the Global Discourse article Kaya Barry, Michelle Duffy & Michele Lobo: Speculative listening: Melting sea ice, and new methods of listening with the planet   &nb ..read more

Forest fire wildfire at night time on the mountain with big smoke in Chiang Mai, Thailand A Review of Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos edited by Jem Bendell and Rupert Read (Polity, 2021) John Foster (j.foster@lancaster.ac.uk). John Foster’s new book Realism and the Climate Crisis: Hope for Life will be published in February 2022 by Bristol University Press. There are dangers in the recently fashionable notion of Deep Adaptation, and this book exhibits them very clearly. That is not its only contribution – it also contains some brave and timely argument and advocacy ..read more

Matthew Parris is a former Conservative MP, Times and Spectator columnist and BBC broadcaster [Editor’s note: This is one of a series of blog pieces on our spring issue, ‘COVID-19 and the Politics of Fear‘, edited by Matt Flinders, Dan Degerman and Matthew Johnson] At home and abroad, the 2020-2021 Covid-19 pandemic may be interpreted as a power-grab by government over the populace. There’s no denying this. That is what has happened. It is possible to call this a conspiracy by politicians. Fear of death and disease (runs the argument) is used to anaesthetise people’s normal appetite for indiv ..read more

Reproduced with permission from Transforming Society Fear has played a significant role in our experience of the pandemic. So often ignored and downplayed, how should we be engaging with this emotion and thinking about it in the context of policy and politics? In this episode of the Transforming Society podcast, Jess Miles speaks with Matt Flinders, co-editor of the latest themed issue of Global Discourse, about the role of fear in politics and public policy ..read more

Matthew Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Politics, Lancaster University (m.johnson@lancaster.ac.uk), Matthew Flinders, Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield (m.flinders@sheffield.ac.uk) and Dan Degerman, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, University of Bristol (dan.degerman@bristol.ac.uk) This Editor’s Choice features contributions examining the (mis-)management of the pandemic. A year ago, we (Flinders, Degerman and Johnson) came together out of shared concern for the place of emotions in politics and shared belief that many orthodoxies on fear as an instrument of public administration were ..read more