The Complexities of Fear in Risk and Emergency Governance: Lessons from the COVID19 Pandemic

This presentation discusses findings regarding the consequences of governance practices that aim at managing potential bio-risks and bio-emergencies associated with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), focussing specifically on the case of COVID19.

The emphasis will be on problems resulting from governance practices that rely on fear stimulation, which result particularly problematic in the long run. The article proposes a framework that can aid in better understanding the challenges of risk and emergency management and is based on empirical findings from 2021/2022, during and at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, when an EID-related bio-risk escalated into a bio-emergency.

The results suggest the deep embeddedness of risk perception in individuals lives and will point at the complexity of governing pandemic risks, especially in the long run.