This book examines how power dynamics unfold during crises, focusing on how transformations in competing socio-political arenas, both domestic and international, shape power structures. As old certainties and institutions collapse, actors must navigate new turbulent conditions.
The chapters in this book address key questions: What power dynamics reveal themselves when people are faced with especially threatening situations? How is control allocated in times of threat? How does the democratic process evolve during crises? What power structures emerge after a crisis? What power dynamics establish themselves after the crises are abated? Do crises lead to better or worse political systems? What dimensions of power are most influential in driving political change during crises?
This book explores how crises lead to the redistribution of power, with new actors emerging as key providers of resources. Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, it examines power dynamics in both short- and long-term contexts. Aimed at students and scholars of political science, international relations, sociology, and crisis management, it covers governance, power shifts, and institutional change during crises.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Political Power.
Edited by:
Giulio M. Gallarotti (Wesleyan University USA)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 246mm,
Width: 174mm,
Weight: 550g
ISBN: 9781032941516
ISBN 10: 1032941510
Pages: 196
Publication Date: 18 August 2025
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction: Power dynamics in times of crisis: an introduction 1. Power and crisis: Bush’s war on terror, democratic rollback and the four dimensions of power 2. The power of critique in the time of emergency: on normative fiction and critical fiction 3. Narrativizing power in times of (many) crises: the case of British conservative leaders 4. Not one inconvenient truth, but many: emergency narratives and climate change 5. The north of Ireland during the interregnum: a Gramscian analysis of power and crisis 6. Global value chains in a brave new world of geopolitics 7. Coercion and legitimacy as sources of power and crisis in autocratic, authoritarian and liberal-democratic leadership: a four-dimensional power analysis 8. Power and Polycrisis: on the durability of capitalism-patriarchy-colonialism (CPC) 9. From economic to structural power: agential capitalism, the belt and road initiative, and China’s economic statecraft after the 2008 crisis
Giulio M. Gallarotti is Professor of Government and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA, and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, New York City, NY USA. He has also been Visiting Professor in the Department of Economic Theory at the University of Rome, Italy. He is editor of the book series Social and Political Power at Manchester University Press and is Co-Chair of the Research Group on Political Power (RC36) in the International Political Science Association. He has published numerous books and articles in the fields of power and international relations.
