PhD Student

Political crisis management to maintain energy security and increase the resilience of the energy system in Germany (working title)

After at least two decades characterised by various crises, making ‘hard calls’ (Boin et al. 2017: 15) and the associated action has become one of the core tasks of political actors in Germany. The actions of political actors in crises are characterised by ‘a set of interrelated and extraordinary governance challenges’ (Boin et al. 2017: 4). Overcoming these challenges and the associated crisis management of political actors play a decisive role in how ‘well’ the affected areas and sectors can survive a crisis. How ‘well’ those affected survive a crisis results, in addition to operational crisis management, from the effectiveness of political crisis management, and this effectiveness in turn is determined by whether the formulated goals of crisis management are achieved. The research object of this thesis is therefore effective political crisis management, which is analysed on the basis of two case studies. The case studies chosen are (1) Covid-19 and (2) the war in Ukraine. Both case studies represent current crises for energy security in Germany. The period of investigation extends from 1 December 2019 to 31 July 2023. The methodology used is (1) qualitative, using a document analysis, and (2) quantitative, using a network analysis.