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This article attempts to explain why governments are surprised when extreme weather, pandemics and migration crisis hit their own country despite their good knowledge of these global threats. With the help of the contingency concept, the article explores the reasons behind these surprises by introducing a new category of threats that complements the ones in the existing literature on surprise. It adds the concept of 'known--corporally unknown' threats to the list of known-unknowns, unknown-unknowns as a way to emphasize the difference between abstract knowledge of 'facts and figures' (of e.g., global warming) and the acquiring of knowledge through personal, bodily experience (tangere) (of flooding and draughts). The article demonstrates how Swedish decision-makers--despite their good scientific knowledge and warning signals from abroad--were surprised by the migration crisis of 2015 and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 because they had not been in direct touch with massive flows of refugees or pandemics of that scale before. The article ends by discussing new ways of acquiring knowledge about global threats for a deeper, corporally anchored, preparedness for the surprises and contingencies to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did the Swedish Government fail to act earlier against the Covid-19-virus in the light of the many foreshadowing outbreaks in China and in Italyand other EU Member States? With the help of the concept creeping crisis (smygande kris), this article analyses the tardiness with which the Swedish authorities acted to prevent thespread of the virus inthe earlystages of the pandemic (January-February 2020) The term refers to the phenomenon of belated measures despite extensive knowledge of slow-acting threats with sudden outbursts such as pandemicsand global warming. The article explains the procrastination of Swedish actions asa result of psychological repression ("it couldn't happen here in our country"), as well as cognitive delays that meant that understanding the threat evolution in the abstract did not spur action in proportion to the insight ("we saw it coming, but didn't act until we felt it in our everyday life"). It ends by discussing possible ways to create more practicallyand temporally informed knowledge ("know-how", "know-when") of creeping crises for the generation of timely action able tostopthese beforethey explode into acute crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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European states may no longer expect inter‐state violence, but they do expect complex threats emanating from storms, epidemics, terror attacks and earthquakes. The EU has answered these threats through the rapid and far‐reaching institutionalization of European security cooperation. However, member states hesitate to use their common capacities. While both intergovernmental and constructivist approaches treat this pattern as evidence of weak integration and as unimportant to the European security community, we examine this cooperation through the lens of practice theory and reveal how the growth of EU capacities is fully compatible with a critical and cautious approach to activating these resources in the everyday work of national officials. Using unique empirical data retrieved through participant observation in the first multisectoral crisis management exercise held by the EU, the findings of this analysis sketch the contours of a new type of security community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Magnus Ekengren, Martijn Groenleer This article raises the question as to what role the EU can and should play in European crisis management. The EU has, in an ad hoc fashion, taken on the responsibility of protecting the security and safety of people from threats, ranging from the mad cow disease to terrorism, after 9/11 and bombings in Madrid and London. The challenge for research is to understand why the EU has been increasingly involved in crisis management. How is an 'EU crisis' socially constructed? What 'EU core values' must be threatened? Why do citizens expect the EU to act? What is the EU's 'crisis management capacity'? The challenge for practitioners is to discuss why, when, how and with what capacities the EU should be involved in crisis management. What should be the division of competence between EU institutions and member states?

The European Union ( EU) has modest but promising capacities to assist member states overwhelmed by disaster through its Civil Protection Mechanism. The EU also routinely sends civil and military missions to hotspots outside EU territory. But these capacities do not suffice in the face of transboundary crises: threats that cross geographical and policy borders within the Union. Examples include epidemics, financial crises, floods, and cyber terrorism. Nation states cannot cope with these threats without international collaboration. In this article, we explore the EU's efforts to develop transboundary crisis management capacities. We describe these budding capacities, explain their policy origins, and explore their future potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world of crises and disasters is changing rapidly. We are witnessing new types of adversity. In addition, modern societies have become increasingly vulnerable to disruptions, new and old. This new world demands new types of responses, which nation states cannot produce alone. Nation states will have to cooperate to protect their citizens from these threats. This article investigates the role of the European Union in the development of new safety and security arrangements. It identifies conceptual building blocks for a new security paradigm and offers design principles that can facilitate a shared way of thinking and acting in the safety and security domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent organizational, institutional and policy developments signal a new type of co–operative policy activity at the European level and suggest the emergence of a new policy space in the European Union. What binds together the activities in that space is a common concern for the protection of the EU citizen. This new policy space crosses sectoral boundaries, draws in a number of governmental and societal actors, and comprises a variety of institutional venues. Moreover, its dimensions span the internal and external divide in EU policies. This article serves as an introduction to a special issue on the topic of the EU’s emerging protection policy space. It first discusses the empirical parameters of this emerging space, before outlining a set of research questions and surveying the theoretical landscape for addressing these questions. It concludes by introducing the articles that comprise the special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil protection is one of the more established European competences within the emerging protection policy space. It is also emblematic of an enduring tension within European politics. European Union states acknowledge the need to work closely to address pressing common issues. Yet those same states retain a tight grip on EU policy activities so as to protect their national sovereignty. That tension is apparent in the adopted ‘solidarity declaration’ from 2004, in which member states vow to assist one another in a disaster, and in the development of the EU’s civil protection competences, where member states have carefully controlled their delegation of powers. This article explores how this tension manifests itself ‘on the ground’, in the actual operation of civil protection missions. Two cases are analysed — the 2002 floods in Central Europe and the 2004 Asian tsunami — in order to understand how member states acted collectively through EU structures and with what effect on the EU’s disaster response effectiveness. By exploring member states’ contributions to joint efforts, how those efforts were organized and what lessons were learned for future development, light is shed on how sovereignty concerns may prove to be an obstacle to solidarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union is making explicit moves towards protecting European citizens from threats. Those threats are no longer just military in nature, nor do they stem from well–defined sources. Today’s threat environment includes terrorist networks, new pathogens, critical infrastructure breakdowns, extreme weather and illegal immigration, to name only a few. Just as importantly, those threats cross sectors and countries without difficulty. The EU’s role in helping to combat those threats — and protecting European citizens from harm — is clear and growing. This concluding article of the special issue discusses the implications of this new policy space for theory and practice and highlights several areas in which future research can further enlighten understanding of European cooperation in this critical area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The new transnational security threats, such as terrorism, challenge traditional methods of European Union cooperation. In the era of threats to inter-state peace the Union engendered security through ‘passive’ integration in the form of the abolition of European borders. Today the EU is increasingly given the responsibility for creating security and safety, both externally and internally, by the means of ‘active’ security instruments such as the European Security and Defence Policy and the Solidarity Declaration of 2004. The challenge is that these policies and principles require a vision beyond that of a free market, common threat perceptions and effective coordination of the crisis management capacity of EU member states. This article argues that the practical needs following this qualitative step, such as the strategic engagement of new security actors and levels of EU governance on a long term basis, are very similar to the ones that the Open Method of Coordination has attempted to resolve in EU cooperation in the field of welfare policies. It suggests that this method should be used also to strengthen the Union security policy and crisis management capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various reports within the issue on topics including the European Union's (EU) transboundary crisis management abilities, the EU's civil protection mechanism, and the EU's humanitarian aid.