By Mikkel Flohr

Crisis is a central concept in contemporary political discourse; we are constantly told that we are in crisis – often several crises at once. We have endured several financial and geopolitical crises since 9/11. We have only recently emerged from a prolonged pandemic and now find ourselves in the midst of an economic and a geopolitical crisis against the backdrop of a climate crisis that threatens the very conditions of human existence on this planet. This essay interrogates the conceptual history of the term “crisis” in the longue durée, charting its development from its ancient Greek origins to its contemporary centrality. It shows how the concept of “crisis,” though it often refers to tangible practical realities, has also come to function as an important discursive device that expands the scope of legitimate action and that has frequently been deployed by political elites to this effect but may also be turned against them.

What’s in a name?

The frequent usage of the term “crisis” across a large variety of contexts to describe various more or less critical situations, makes the concept appear normal and innocuous. However, we ought to pay close attention to its deployment. The identification of a situation as a crisis does more than merely describe it; it also shapes our understanding of that situation, rendering it a matter of urgency, and expanding what responses appear appropriate, if not necessary.

A crisis is typically conceived as an extraordinary and temporary situation marked by some sort of existential threat, which necessitates swift and often radical action to restore security and normalcy. Defining a situation as a crisis, not only changes our understanding of what is happening by emphasizing these aspects of the situation at the expense of others, but also upends existing norms, expanding the scope of possible action and, potentially, legitimizing drastic measures that would otherwise seem excessive. In this way, discourses of crisis can often serve as strategic instruments that can be mobilized to suspend existing norms and expand the range of possible action. To understand this, we must examine the concept’s historical and semantic development.

The conceptual history of crisis

The concept has deep historical roots. The conceptual historian Reinhart Koselleck has traced the concept back to the Ancient Greek krisis [κρίσις], derived from the verb krinō [κρίνω] meaning “to decide,” “to choose,” “to separate”, “to judge”, and “to fight” – all meanings that resonate with our contemporary understanding of the term crisis. It was primarily deployed across three domains in antiquity:

1. In politics, it referred to the decisive point moment in a decision-making process or the pronouncement of a verdict.

2. In theology, it denoted God’s judgement, leading to either eternal salvation or damnation.

3. In Hippocratic medicine, it referred to the diagnosis and treatment whereby a patient’s fate was determined.[1]

These meanings evolved through transfers between domains, accumulating semantic layers. In medieval times, the medical interpretation became dominant and subsequently entered political language through prominent analogies between the body and society qua “the body politic.” From this point onward, the concept spread to other domains and came to form a central aspect of the historical consciousness of modernity, from the age of revolutions and onwards.[2]

In the twentieth century, the concept of crisis became near ubiquitous and since the financial crisis of 2008, our present has been characterized as a perpetual crisis or series of crises.[3] The historian Adam Tooze has recently adopted the term “polycrisis” to describe the current situation, where multiple crises seem to intertwine, reinforce, and exacerbate each other in a complex web of interrelations that produce challenges much greater and more complex than the sum of their parts.[4]

Towards a definition of crisis

Despite its historical and semantic variation, the concept of crisis exhibits some remarkably stable characteristics that have facilitated its contemporary meaning and omnipresence: First and foremost, the concept of crisis denotes a situation that is characterized by an existential threat, which requires immediate and decisive action. It generates a sense of urgency, compelling swift and radical action. Secondly, all of its historical uses refer to and rely on some sort of authority – a judge, a ruler, God, or a doctor – that can identify and resolve the crisis. As such discourses of crisis often bolster and expand the authority of governments, elites, or experts, frequently at the expense of democracy and the rule of law, as Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben have shown in their work on the state of exception.[5]

Thirdly, a crisis is typically viewed as temporary – an exceptional but transitory period, where our actions – or lack thereof – determine the future. Consequently, the suspension of norms appears more acceptable. However, temporary measures have a tendency to become permanent. This happens because the actors implementing them often have an interest in rendering them permanent, and because the crisis narrative itself may justify a re-evaluation of the “normal condition.” Thus, crisis discourses may serve to legitimize increased power for political elites, allowing them to seize extensive powers and implement radical measures, which may redefine social and political norms indefinitely. The journalist Naomi Klein has shown how crises were used to justify unpopular neoliberal reforms in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.[6]

The conceptual history of crisis indicates how and why this concept has acquired its contemporary significance – and perhaps more importantly – how it has come to be used by political actors to legitimize extraordinary expansions of their powers. Janet Roitman, moreover, argues that the understanding of a crisis as a dangerous and temporary deviation from the “normal” situation may also inadvertently legitimize and idealize the status quo, while obscuring its role in producing the crisis in the first place. The designation of a situation as a crisis may thus foreclose an interrogation of the conditions that gave rise to it – such as the anarchy of the international state system, the contradictions of the capitalist system, or the ongoing environmental collapse. Moreover, by framing crises as temporary and technical problems, this discourse favors delegating responsibility to experts and elites. What appears as a neutral response to exceptional circumstances is thus deeply ideological: it reasserts the legitimacy of existing power structures while rendering their role in producing crisis invisible.[7]

The political ambiguity of crises

While the concept of crisis tacitly refers to and depends on an authority and is frequently deployed to legitimize and expand the powers of government, it cannot be reduced to this function. Indeed, the very need to expand these powers as well as the necessity to legitimize it through discourses of crisis, indicates a certain weakness and vulnerability on their behalf. The concept of crisis contains an inherent political duality, and power is not immune to the effects of crises.

In the history of political thought, the threat of crisis has traditionally played a central role in legitimizing the sovereign power of the state and government, e.g., Thomas Hobbes’ “state of nature” and Carl Schmitt’s “state of exception.”[8] Yet this reliance on crises to legitimize itself shows that sovereignty is not self-contained, but rather depends on continuously invoking and containing crises in order to legitimize and maintain itself. Crises are therefore not only a way of legitimizing sovereign power but may also pose a very real threat to it. If the state proves unable to contain a crisis, its legitimacy is undermined and it may, potentially, begin to unravel. This is why Theda Skocpol in States and Social Revolution, identifies seemingly external crises as potential crises of the state that can develop into revolutionary situations.[9] Although crises may very well be used to sustain or increase the power of the state and government, they can also threaten and destabilize it; the powers unleashed by crises are potentially always also a crisis of power.[10]

As crises continue to shape our understanding of the world, it is crucial to become aware of how discourses of crisis function – not only to address urgent challenges but also to recognize the broader political and social transformations they enable. The crisis concept is not merely a descriptive term; it is a powerful discursive device that shapes political possibilities and may potentially restructure social and political norms in a multitude of ways. By understanding its conceptual history, we can also critically assess how it is deployed – both to expand authority and to challenge it – and whose interests it might serve.

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Mikkel Flohr is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at Roskilde University, working at the intersection of political theory, the history of ideas, and historical sociology. He is currently working on the research project “Politics of the Exception: Towards a Political Theory of the State(s) of Exception” funded by the Carlsberg Foundation.

Title Image: Cartoon from the French newspaper, “Le Petit Journal”, about the Bosnian Crisis of 1908. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Further reading:

Agamben, Giorgio. State of Exception, translated by Kevin Attel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Brennan, Eugene (ed.). South Atlantic Quarterly 123 (2): Special issue on “Crisis Theory.”

Klein, Naomi. The Shock Doctrine. London: Penguin, 2007.

Koselleck, Reinhart. “Crisis,” translated by Michaela W. Richter. Journal of the History of Ideas 67, no. 2 (2006): 357–400.

Lähde. “The Polycrisis.” Aeon. Accessed March 27, 2025. https://aeon.co/essays/the-case-for-polycrisis-as-a-keyword-of-our-interconnected-times.

Roitman, Janet. Anti-Crisis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013.

Schmitt, Carl. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, translated by George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Endnotes:

[1] Reinhart Koselleck, “Crisis,” Journal of the History of Ideas 67/2 (2006): 357–60.

[2] Koselleck, “Crisis,” 361-63, 370-72; see also Mathias Hein Jessen, “Sovereign Bodies: Constitution and Construction of State, Subject and Corporation” (PhD thesis, Århus University, 2015).

[3] Koselleck, “Crisis,” 397–400.

[4] Adam Tooze, “Welcome to the World of the Polycrisis,” Financial Times, October 28, 2022; see also Lähde, “The Polycrisis,” Aeon, accessed March 27, 2025, https://aeon.co/essays/the-case-for-polycrisis-as-a-keyword-of-our-interconnected-times.

[5] Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer Omnibus (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017) ); see also Mikkel Flohr, “Securitization (Copenhagen School),” in Critical Legal Thinking (2025): https://criticallegalthinking.com/2025/03/31/key-concept-securitization-copenhagen-school/.

[6] Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (London: Penguin, 2007).

[7] Janet Roitman, Anti-Crisis (Durham: Duke University Press, 2013).

[8] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994); Schmitt, Political Theology.

[9] Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 17-24, passim.

[10] Lotte List, “Crisis Sovereignty: Political Metaphysics in Crisis Times,” in Political Theology Today: 100 Years after Carl Schmitt, ed. Mitchell Dean, Lotte List, and Stefan Schwarzkopf (London: Bloomsbury, 2023), 111–24; Mikkel Flohr, “Stasis: Civil War, Revolution and Destitution in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer-Series,” Parrhesia 37 (2023): 173–206.