Controversial issues in crisis management. Bridging public policy and crisis management to better understand and address crises

Abstract The current body of multidisciplinary literature on crisis management still has some unresolved problems. This paper focuses on the following four “controversial issues” in dealing with crises: the usefulness of emergency plans; early signal detection; decision‐making amid high uncertainty; and the centralization/decentralization dilemma. The paper first presents the various, contradictory dimensions of these controversial issues, drawing on different strands of organization research, public policy theory, and crisis management studies. Next, these controversial issues are analyzed through the lens of public policy research, drawing specifically on the literature on policy robustness and policy capacities. This theoretical application shows how controversial issues can be framed differently and thus overcome—at least from an analytical and theoretical perspective—confirming that a bridge between crisis management and public policy can be very fruitful in improving our understanding of how crises can be addressed.