Multilevel Governance and Coordination in Crisis Management

This paper aims at identifying factors critical for coordinated crisis management in a system characterized by multiple actors, sectors, organizations and levels of governance. Effective coordination in such contexts is vital, but also challenging. Literature on coordination and crisis management points to the difficulties or even impossibility of achieving strong coordination of a policy/measure both vertically, across levels of governance, and horizontally, between sectors, organizations etc. Some authors refer to this as a ´coordination dilemma”, which is almost impossible to solve. This paper addresses this dilemma by providing two basic claims: 1) situations with short time horizons, such as urgent crisis, exacerbate coordination problems and therefore appear as critical cases for studying the coordination dilemma; and 2) although the coordination dilemma exists in real life it is often overstated, and it is therefore necessary to provide a better understanding of the conditions under which the dilemma actually plays out. The paper substantiates these claims by exploring the conditions for achieving effective coordination in crisis management in a system characterized by multiple actors, sectors and levels of governance. Based on comprehensive data (documents, interviews, e-mails, logging material) from an in-depth case study of the management of a major food safety crisis – the E.coli outbreak in Norway in 2006 – the paper identifies critical points for coordination and specifies conditions under which the coordination dilemma can be reduced or even “solved”. The management of the E.coli outbreak involved two government authorities – the health administration with responsibility for patients, and the food safety administration with responsibility for food industries. Crisis management thus required coordination between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In addition, crisis management demanded coordination between the ministries and responsible state agencies, as well as coordination with both food industries and health services at the municipal level. Crisis management moreover took place with a very short time horizon – as it was vital to find the cause of the outbreak of E.coli and contain it, as soon as possible in order to avoid escalation of the crisis with multiple deaths as possible outcome. In outbreaks of foodborne illnesses the potential for widespread infections is high, as infected food within a short time can be distributed and sold to a large number of people in a wide geographical area – also to other countries. Thus, crisis management in food safety crisis provides a good case for studying horizontal and vertical coordination in situations of urgency. Based on an organization theory approach, the paper identifies two core dimensions, which are critical for horizontal and vertical coordination in crisis management: communication and authority. Four critical factors under these dimensions are identified: 1) clearly specified (and coordinated) focal point at the central level to which lower levels of governance can refer to; 2) coordination between risk management and risk communication; 3) unambiguous and coordinated communication across levels of governance; 4) strong link between power/authority and capacity for action.