Framing Crises as Public Problems: Understanding Crisis Emergence and Policymaking
Lydie Cabane, Thijs van Dooremalen, Thijs de Boer and Wout Broekema argue that crises are not simply external disruptions to policymaking, but public problems actively constructed through political and social framing processes involving political actors, institutions and public discourse.
- Author
- Lydie Cabane, Thijs van Dooremalen, Thijs de Boer, Wout Broekema
- Date
- 23 June 2026
- Links
- Lees het volledige artikel hier
The article explores how conditions and events come to be recognised as crises, how they are placed on the political agenda, and how crisis framing shapes policy responses. Drawing on the literature on public problems, it argues that crises are socially constructed through framing contests involving governments, political parties, experts, the media and social movements, and that crisis frames create urgency, justify exceptional interventions, and influence which policy instruments are considered legitimate.
The authors demonstrate that crisis framing is shaped by institutional arrangements, cultural contexts and the actions of different political actors, and that it influences not only whether an issue reaches the political agenda, but also the type of policy responses that become politically and legally feasible. By integrating insights from crisis studies with theories of public problems and agenda-setting, the article offers a conceptual framework for understanding the emergence and governance of crises, contributing to debates about the growing "crisisification" of politics and its implications for democratic policymaking.