Government at risk: between distributed risks and threats and effective policy-responses

What is it about?

Contrary to hopes expressed by the late 20th century thinkers, in the 21st century a sense of uncertainty, justifiable fear of the ‘nascent unknown’, and unpredictability prevail. The Covid-19 pandemic and its implications serve as an acute reminder of that. As the value of democracy and liberal order are openly contested and tested today, governments are subjects to pressures from within and from outside. And yet, in absence of a valid alternative, the spirit of Westphalia continues to define the basic logic of interaction in the world, thus consolidating the place of the government in the centre stage of developments such as populism, extremism, propaganda, cyber-security, cyber-warfare, as well the rise of cryptocurrencies and many other. The common feature of these ‘distributed’ challenges (because spread across the context, in which governments are embedded) is that they expose the government’s relative incapacity to respond to them swiftly and effectively. In other words, the – developed over the centuries – capacity of the state apparatus, of the government, is incommensurate with the agility of challenges borne in the 21st century (cf. Visvizi & Lytras, 2019). The question is what can be done about it.

Featured Image