Olivier Rubin Publishes new Book: Chronic Crises: An Exploration of Crises with No End in Sight

The book argues that we are living in a world of chronic crises: situations that continue to cause harm but resist closure. Instead of moving from emergency to recovery, these crises linger, mutate, and become part of the background conditions of everyday life. Many of today’s pressing problems are not temporary disruptions, but crises that never really end.

These chronic crises unfold in distinct ways. Some emerge in contexts of extreme deprivation, where it is difficult to tell when the crisis begins or ends; these are seething crises, such as famine and starvation, which endure in contexts of acute need.  Others develop gradually over decades, shaping expectations and creating a sense of permanent uncertainty; these are perpetual crises, like climate change and antimicrobial resistance, which reshape how people anticipate and plan for the future. Still others start as acute shocks but gradually settle into ongoing, normalized conditions; these are transitional crises such as COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS, which become endemic even as their adverse impacts continue.

These prolonged crisis trajectories matter. They shape exposures, vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms. They also challenge political systems that are often designed for short-term emergencies rather than events with no clear endpoint or resolution where urgency fades and incentives to act weaken over time.

By focusing on how crises endure rather than how they begin, the book offers a new way of understanding contemporary risks, and why so many of them remain unresolved. 

 

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