Studying Crisis Management in the EU: lessons from crisis research

Following a steady succession of crises in Europe, from terror attacks to bank failures and from refugee influxes to severe pandemics, scholarly eyes are turning to the European Union’s role in helping to manage crises. Emerging research questions go beyond the traditional inquiry of member state cohesion during crises and may benefit from analytical frameworks outside of the conventional EU studies toolkit. This paper offers up insights from a different field – crisis management research – to assess what new perspectives it can bring to EU studies. The paper explores four research themes in the crisis management literature that speak to EU research agendas: the centralization reflex, decision-making under pressure, meaning making under crises, and learning lessons after crises.