Marino, Anna and Didier Ruedin

Crises as claims
2023

The objective of this article is to clarify the concept of crisis to make it more useful for empirical research in the social sciences and humanities. We present a theoretical frame in which crises are defined as claims. An actor makes a claim that a situation differs from what should be, and that the consequences of this are grave/negative. Crises thus have a normative side, implying that urgent action is needed to ensure that the situation does not get worse. An audience is required for a crisis to arise. We provide examples to show that this approach can be applied to many situations and argue that it allows for a more disciplined study of crises and their effects on social phenomena, bridging objectivist and constructivist approaches. In particular, the theoretical frame is suitable for studying the diffusion of references to crises.