Dr Marlene Jungl of University of Bocconi will give a talk on:

Country size and crisis cognition: Why Germany was less prepared to respond to the 2015 refugee crisis than Luxembourg  

Abstract: Why do some governments react faster to crises and disasters than others? This study combines arguments about bureaucratic pathologies with sociological literatures on cognition and small state vulnerability to explain variation in governments’ recognition of crises. Crisis cognition, an essential first step in crisis management, varies with administrative structures, practices, and collective memory and identity. These mechanisms are systematically related to country size, an overlooked but influential and ubiquitous factor. This theoretical framework is applied to Europe’s 2015 refugee crisis to explain a puzzle: Why did the German government recognize the emerging crisis later than its counterpart in small Luxembourg? Based on a qualitative comparative design, the study traces mechanisms through which small country size facilitated timely crisis cognition.  

This is a hybrid event.  In 27 University Square and online