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The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of government institutions and prompted a broad range of policy measures from governments around the world. Policy responses to the pandemic have varied considerably, both in nature and in success. This paper highlights the policy capacities of the UAE in different areas that have contributed to managing the COVID-19 crisis. Specifically, the paper examines the functional capacity, analytical capacity, fiscal capacity, well-timed information-sharing capacity and political capacity of the UAE in addressing the pandemic.

The study on which this paper was based adopted a mixed-method approach to analyze policy capacities. The trajectory and timeframe of COVID-19 from February 2020 to February 2021 were observed intensively and included in the policy capacity analysis. The secondary dataset was collected from several sources and assessed using rapid content analysis to highlight the formal and institutional policy measures implemented during the crisis. To complement the policy analysis and understand the key role of policymakers, semi-structured interviews were conducted with local officials working in various line departments that formulate and implement policy strategies for the UAE government.

The findings of the study showed that although COVID-19 has severely impacted the UAE, the nation has effectively controlled the spread of the virus and reduced its mortality rate. The UAE government has taken swift policy actions concerning coercive control and mitigation based on a centralized decision-making style, the strengthening of administrative capacity by collaboration, coordination with different departments, successful communication with residents, the allocation of adequate financial resources and a high level of trust in the government by citizens.

This work contributes to the existing literature by highlighting the policy capacity approach to managing the crisis. The UAE case can be used by policymakers as comparative studies of policy designs, tools and capabilities that can be implemented to manage future pandemics and other crises.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how adaptive capacity is accomplished through communication processes and can contribute to enhancing disaster resilience. The authors adopt a structurational “four flows” explanation of communication processes.

The authors observed and analyzed discourse in meetings of a crisis communication network consisting of representatives of municipalities and public authorities involved in crisis communication management during the Västmanland wildfire in Sweden.

Adaptive capacity during the wildfire was principally accomplished through the structurational communication processes or “flows” of self-structuring, activity coordination, and institutional positioning. These flows intersected demonstrating how communication accomplishes the development of a responsive affiliation, organizes stabilizing structuring practices, and enables adaptive structuring practices.

The main contribution of this study is a communicative explanation for adaptive capacity, which draws from a structurational model of constitutive communication, and lends further understanding to improvisation during disasters.

The authors discuss the findings in relation to improvisation, suggesting how the findings can inform future coordinated crisis communication for the public and news media. The recommendations address how practitioners might build a responsive affiliation, use minimal structures (e.g. communication practices), and maintain flexibility by introducing group reflexivity behaviors.

The authors provide new theoretical and empirical knowledge of the communicative constitution of adaptive capacity during a disaster.

The United States (U.S.) has been described as the root of the global financial crisis. The events of the financial, sovereign debt, and Euro crisis and the accompanying economic turmoil that have spread throughout most of the Western world have been traced back to the excessive consumer borrowing, sub-prime mortgage lending and ultimately the housing bubble in the United States. Its burst in 2008 created a shock that overshadowed prior recession and fiscal stress of governmental entities in the United States. Deriving over 90% of their own tax revenues from property taxes, local governments in Michigan have been hit even more excessively. However, the cases analysed in this chapter not only tell a unique story of deep shock and legacy costs, but also of creative ways of surviving the crisis, exerting different patterns of financial resilience. In general, state regulations restricted buffering the impact, and some cities additionally suffered from their geographical vicinity to and economic dependency on Detroit, a city that stands for the turbulence of the U.S. automobile industry. After first deploying buffering capacities that still existed, two cases saw the crisis as an opportunity to address their vulnerabilities (reactive adapters), an opportunity that was not recognised in the case of a constrained adapter. In contrast, one case showed strong anticipatory and coping capacities that have been built up in the past, equipping the local government to operate in a lean and efficient way, and to proactively adapt to arising shocks.

Data security breaches are an increasingly common and costly problem for organizations, yet there are critical gaps in our understanding of the role of stakeholder relationship management and crisis communication in relation to data breaches. In fact, though there have been some studies focusing on data breaches, little is known about what might constitute a “typical” response to data breaches whether those responses are effective at maintaining the stakeholders' relationship with the organization, their commitment to use the organization after the crisis, or the reputational threat of the crisis. Further, even less is known about the factors most influencing response and outcome evaluation during data breaches.

We identify a “typical” response strategy to data breaches and then evaluate the role of this response in comparison to situation, stakeholder demographics and relationships between stakeholders, the issue and the organization using an experimental design. This experiment focuses on a 2 (type of organization) × 2 (prior knowledge of breach risk) with a control group design.

Findings suggest that rather than employing reactive crisis response messaging the role of public relations should focus on proactive relationship building between organizations and key stakeholders.

For the last several decades much of the field of crisis communication has assumed that in the context of a crisis the response strategy itself would materially help the organization. These data suggest that the field crisis communication may have been making the wrong assumption. In fact, these data suggest that reactive crisis response has little-to-no effect once we consider the relationships between organizations, the issue and stakeholders. The findings show that an ongoing program of crisis capacity building is to an organization's strategic advantage when data security breaches occur.

This chapter’s goal is to define the kind of seeds to be planted for moving forward in the safe and stable drive toward a leading central banking role directed at achieving a sustained Islamic banking and finance development within the global financial system. The system witnessed the input of Islamic banking with its fruitful contribution as a feasible banking structure in both implementing agreed reforms and shaping the next steps directed toward crisis prevention and crisis resolution.

The adopted approach is based upon scientific conceptual basis as well as the practical experience related to the central banking role and Islamic banking evolution. This chapter will define the strategic role of Central Banks and highlight the conceptual basis governing the leading role of central banks as well as the practical basis derived from our central banking and Islamic banking experience.

In light of the conceptual and practical basis for enabling an efficient and effective role of Central Banks as a regulatory body in shaping the future of the Islamic Financial System. Legal, institutional and managerial strategic determinants for this role have been defined.

The analytical work of this chapter crystallises in a pioneering initiative the main determining factors governing the role of central banks as the main regulatory body for Islamic banking, and how this role could be effective in affecting the future role to be played by the Islamic banks in the global financial system. Also, to this end, the integrated required role by central banks, public policies, multilateral institutions and Islamic banks are illustrated.

Energy and cooperative hard work and commitment from all players, including the regulators of Islamic banks supported by public policies, international and multilateral institutions and members of the Islamic banking family is thought to be the main determining factor for transforming the Islamic banking family into one that will make the Islamic people and all humanity – through the global financial system – live with more stability, welfare and happiness.

This paper aims to investigate the strategies used by Swedish citizens to adapt to changing climate variability and extremes. There is an increasing consensus that individual adaptive capacities are critical to successfully adapt to climate change and achieve sustainable development. However, little is known about individual adaptive practices, particularly in developed countries.

The study covered a variety of geographical areas and included single-case studies of specific locations, cross-case studies and country-wide studies. Data were collected through literature review, interviews with at-risk people, observation and group discussions with municipal staff.

The paper provides an overview of Swedish citizens’ adaptive practices and highlights how institutional development efforts affect individuals and their activities, including the equitable distribution of adaptation needs and resources. The paper concludes that individual adaptive capacities do not necessarily translate into adaptation.

The results show that planned interventions are required. They emphasise the importance of more people-oriented adaptation planning that fosters the sustainable transformation of cities, together with the role that South-North knowledge transfer can play in this context.

The paper offers critical insights into the positive and negative effects of citizens’ adaptation strategies (based on criteria such as effectiveness, sustainability and equity), and it discusses their relevance in the formulation of development policies and programmes.

This chapter provides a conceptual backdrop to the book describing the origins of public value theory and its evolution towards a multi-actor theory of public value co-creation. It places the theory within the public governance paradigm which is characterized by a collaborative logic underpinning the pursuit of public value. The chapter defines cross-sectoral partnerships and network management as some of the key operational constructs to implement public value co-creation. It also focuses briefly on the role of collaborative innovation as the practices aimed at co-creating new products/services and/or solutions through collaboration. Finally, it discusses the role of public value co-creation in turbulent times.

Theoretically, both democ/ratic legitimacy and government capacity are necessary for successful crisis management, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors argue that there are important variations for pandemic management in the developed and democratic world. However, are these equally needed in the developing world where democracy and capacity are present in varying degrees and in some countries with a vast deficit? This article analyzes how legitimacy and capacity affect citizens' satisfaction with the pandemic management in South Asia.

The study is based on a survey of 3,423 randomly selected respondents from Facebook users in South Asia. The survey data are presented and discussed along with information derived from secondary sources to put the data in the broader context of the South Asian countries. The authors apply ordinary linear regression for statistical analysis.

The findings suggest that citizens are content with the performance of government institutions in COVID-19 management. They emphasize material well-being, such as relief provisions and financial incentives during the crisis period. They are, however, less concerned about the legitimacy dimension, although democracy in South Asia is flawed with excessive restrictions on public freedom during the pandemic. The contradictory findings may be due to the public orientation towards authoritarian culture and their preference for strongman rule in crisis management.

The governments in South Asia may systematically use army and police forces to manage crises as people are more satisfied with their performance during COVID-19 management.

This is the first time data across South Asia have been collected and analyzed about crisis management.

Health systems are periodically confronted by crises – think of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, H1N1, and Ebola – during which they are called upon to manage exceptional situations without interrupting essential services to the population. The ability to accomplish this dual mandate is at the heart of resilience strategies, which in healthcare systems involve developing surge capacity to manage a sudden influx of patients. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper relates insights from resilience research to the four “S” of surge capacity (staff, stuff, structures and systems) and proposes a framework based on complexity theory to better understand and assess resilience factors that enable the development of surge capacity in complex health systems.

Detailed and dynamic complexities manifest in different challenges during a crisis. Resilience factors are classified according to these types of complexity and along their temporal dimensions: proactive factors that improve preparedness to confront both usual and exceptional requirements, and passive factors that enable response to unexpected demands as they arise during a crisis. The framework is completed by further categorizing resilience factors according to their stabilizing or destabilizing impact, drawing on feedback processes described in complexity theory. Favorable order resilience factors create consistency and act as stabilizing forces in systems, while favorable disorder factors such as diversity and complementarity act as destabilizing forces.

The framework suggests a balanced and innovative process to integrate these factors in a pragmatic approach built around the fours “S” of surge capacity to increase health system resilience.

French municipalities are in charge of a large number of local public services and benefit from a good, even if decreasing, financial autonomy. They have been until recently and despite the 2008 crisis, in a good financial situation supported by stable tax revenues and protective national policies. But they are now weakened by strong cuts in their main operating grant operated from 2015.

Through a case study, this chapter attempts to better understand French municipalities’ patterns of financial resilience in times of austerity. Interviews have been driven in four middle size municipalities in various financial situation, to understand the effects of the crisis on their vulnerability and the influence of their financial and organisational capacities on their resilience patterns.

The study shows that all four municipalities enhanced their responsiveness following the 2015 cut in grants. The latter appeared as a major shock that prompts them to change their behaviours and strengthen their resilience. But municipalities took up different paths of resilience, building up or investing in different anticipatory and coping capacities. Buffering capacities, such as cost cuts, were present in all cases to cope with shocks. Conversely, adapting and transforming capacities were not as prevalent. The pro-active resilient municipality relies on a mix of capacities. But three out of four cases show patterns of financial resilience that leave them insufficiently prepared for future shocks. This research shows the necessity to develop and constantly maintain anticipatory and coping capacities that are suitable for tackling the municipalities’ specific vulnerability sources.