Comment archive

Thursday, 4 Dec 2025
What are duties good for? Lessons from the pandemic

The concept of duty can be clarifying of social and political relations.

Tuesday, 23 Feb 2021
Tech-Based States of Emergency: some key takeaways

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the acceleration of pre-existing technological trends. As states introduce new rules and technological solutions to fight the pandemic, it can be tempting to view these technological applications as neutral scientific decisions. However, we must critically examine these decisions because times of crisis set standards which ...

Friday, 29 Jan 2021
National Risk Assessments: a political vaccine against the next disaster?

The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the political potential of National Risk Assessments (NRAs). The consistent focus of European NRAs on the risk of pandemics while public attention was glued to terrorism demonstrates their relevance to the question of how to prevent and prepare for future disasters – be they natural or ...

Friday, 15 Jan 2021
Conflating societal and national security – Resilience and civil preparedness in Sweden

In May 2018, the Swedish government distributed a pamphlet entitled “If the Crisis or the War Comes” to 4.8 million households in Sweden. Both the pamphlet (pictured above) [1] and its distribution may be are unprecedented in the current era. The stated purpose of the pamphlet from the government’s perspective ...

Thursday, 23 Apr 2020
Women’s Leadership Could Enhance Global Recovery From COVID-19

This piece is part of our blog series Beyond the COVID Curve. COVID-19 has quickly changed everything from our daily routines, to the policies of governments, to the fortunes of the global economy. How will it continue to shape society and the conditions for peace and conflict globally in the near ...