Why states are not keeping us safe in the long run: the theory and practice of preventing future societal destabalization
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Bas Heerma van Voss
Radboud University Netherlands
basheermavanvoss@gmail.com
Author(s):
Ira Helsloot1
1Radboud Universiteit, I.Helsloot@Crisislab.Nl, NLD
Over the past century, material discomforts of and immediate risks to the average peace-time inhabitant of a developed country have decreased significantly. Simultaneously (and, perhaps, confoundedly), our tools for scientific assessments of future risks have improved drastically. As a consequence, most developed nations now have analytical capacities, financial means and political space to deal with long term risks such as climate change, the emergence of malign artificial intelligence and future pandemics. How have nations organized themselves to make effective use of our increased powers of prediction to mitigate risks? And how have they used that knowledge to achieve better outcomes?
In this paper, we will establish a framework for explaining why modern, developed states with remarkable scientific capability at their disposal remain woefully underprepared to mitigate potential destabilizing risk to societies. We have drawn on literature on state risk management, long-term policy investment and game theory to identify the most poignant causes for this state failure. We will test this framework against the semi-destabilizing event of Covid-19, and especially the track record of states in preparing for an epidemic outbreak prior to 2020. We will demonstrate that there is no statistical relation between preparation indices and actual outcomes, most likely because almost all countries were almost entirely unprepared for an epidemic event of Covid-19’s scope – as was the international framework for handling such a crisis.
We will conclude that this lack of preparation fits the framework that wdeveloped in the first section of the paper – states are indeed generally not very good at preparing for long-term destabilizing risk, even when they are highly predictable and also in fact predicted, and the reasons why they are not are both understandable and to a large degree surmountable.
How to ensure our future - prevention of low-chance or far-off catastrophes by states