Stability or instability in crisis policymaking? From the emergency management perspective to the robustness perspective

This paper examines how incident management systems (IMS) were adapted during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to enable rapid and effective emergency responses, focusing on three processes of adaptation in Denmark, Italy and Spain. In all three cases, the IMS underwent substantial innovations and adaptations to address operational challenges. Neither did the IMS remain bottom-up, nor did they fully re-centralize. Instead, they underwent adaptive instability, mixing bottom-up and top-down in response to contingencies. Emergency managers relied on practical knowledge and feedback loops to guide changes in the absence of prescriptive plans.