Crisis as Opportunities for Robust Government: A Systematic Review of Policy Process Literature

Abstract Increasing risks and crises present a challenging new normal for contemporary emergency management. It is important for public organizations to build robust government structures that can adapt to changing circumstances, rather than conform to rigid established procedures. Nevertheless, scholars have not fully explored how the transition to such robustness develops after crisis events. This paper fills the research gap by proposing an event-driven policy process model based on 171 identified crisis event studies, whereby a crisis drives learning that leads to changes in government structures or policy processes. Using a systematic review of the literature, we find that variation in crisis type and scale of impact influence subsequent policy dynamics that are critical to learning by governments. Key process dynamics (e.g. agenda setting, policy formulation, and implementation) and various types of learning are identified in the crisis-driven process that leads to robustness in public organizations. In addition, the role of scientific evidence and learning decay also play roles in this transition.