When Territorial Structures Fail: An Analytical Framework for Crisis Management Leadership in Multilevel Systems

How do territorial structures in multilevel systems enable or constrain effective leadership for crisis management? Multilevel systems face distinctive challenges: ambiguous competence boundaries complicate rapid decision-making; political authorities at different territorial levels may pursue competing narratives; and diffuse accountability systems enable blame-shifting dynamics that undermine collective learning. While crisis management literature provides robust frameworks for evaluating political leadership (Boin et al., 2016; Boin, Kuipers & Overdijk, 2013), their systematic application to analyse intergovernmental coordination failures in multilevel contexts remains limited. This paper seeks to address this gap by developing an analytical framework that examines how institutional complexity shapes crisis response effectiveness. The proposed framework adapts the four critical strategic tasks that political leaders must perform during crises (Boin et al., 2016) to federal and quasi-federal systems: (1) early detection and preparedness across governmental tiers; (2) sensemaking to enable shared understanding among multiple decision-making centers; (3) decision-making and coordination to facilitate vertical and horizontal intergovernmental cooperation; and (4) meaning-making to formulate compelling narratives that guide action and maintain public confidence. The framework addresses questions such as: How do governments at each territorial level perform these tasks? Where do coordination mechanisms succeed or fail? What role do pre-existing intergovernmental cooperation institutions play? How do political dynamics—including "framing contests" (Brändström & Kuipers, 2003) over responsibility attribution—affect the crisis response? To illustrate and test the application of this framework, the paper examines Spain's response to the October 29, 2024 catastrophic flash floods caused by a cut-off low in several Spanish regions—especially the Autonomous Community of Valencia—resulting in 229 deaths and economic losses exceeding €17 billion. Beyond its devastating human and material toll, the crisis exposed critical intergovernmental coordination failures within Spain's Estado de las Autonomías. Spain constitutes a valuable case study for several reasons: it is a highly decentralized system with constitutionally entrenched regional autonomy; it has previous experience with similar disasters (1957, 1982, 2019) and recent crisis management challenges (COVID-19); and research has documented persistent coordination problems in Spanish intergovernmental relations (García Morales, 2016; Colino, 2021). Methodologically, the analysis triangulates documentary sources, parliamentary transcripts, systematic media coverage, and semi-structured interviews with officials across governmental levels. This research contributes to comparative crisis management scholarship by showing how institutional complexity in multilevel governance structures affects the performance of critical leadership tasks during emergencies. The four-task analytical framework, tested through the Spanish case, will offer conceptual and methodological tools applicable to other systems, including federal and quasi-federal states and regional governance arrangements. By systematically analysing leadership performance across territorial governmental tiers, the paper provides comparative insights into how institutional design choices shape crisis response capacity. Morevoer, understanding these dynamics becomes increasingly urgent as climate change intensifies extreme weather events.