European government of crisis: Summary of the research findings in the four regimes and containing policy-relevant recommendations for the enhancement of crisis leadership capacity on the basis of the research

This study explores the way in which European governance seeks to address transboundary crises. Transboundary crises pose a particular challenge for administrative systems as costs and benefits are unevenly distributed, organisational and jurisdictional competencies over- and underlap, and as problem definitions and solutions are usually disputed. Boundaries are essential for the identity of national states, they are critical for determining the jurisdictional competence of organisations and they are critical for administering individual phenomena. Transboundary crises, in contrast, do not respect such boundaries. Crises themselves might be disruptive, but might be contained within certain boundaries. In the context of transboundary crises, disruption crosses jurisdictional boundaries. Furthermore, decisions in one place do not just affect the quality of the crises in that particular locality, they also affect the nature of the crisis in other jurisdictions. Transboundary crises are said to be of particular relevance to the contemporary context of governance as processes of globalisation have increased vulnerabilities to crises. Furthermore, the rise of multi-level and supra-national forms of governance reduces states’ ability to tackle crises within their own boundaries (Boin et al. 2013). In other words, transboundary crises present a central challenge to any contemporary system of governing. This study is particularly interested in the ways in which the EU as a system of multi-level governances organises crisis management regimes to address certain types of transboundary crises. The question of how the EU addresses transboundary crises has become increasingly pertinent since the financial crisis is said to have brought about a new era of ‘emergency politics’ (White 2015). The financial and sovereign debt crises highlighted the vulnerability of the EU and its member states to transboundary crises. It also highlighted the tensions that emerge from seeking to develop coordinated responses in the context of an integrating market that maintains an emphasis on national liberal democracy. More recent cases, such as the refugee and terrorism crises, have also exposed the difficulties in coordinating transboundary crises inside the European Union with member states that have diverging, if not conflicting, interests