Blog piece on crisis talk, by Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark
In a blog piece – published on Europe day, 9 May – Associate Professor Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark notes that we are currently experiencing an overuse of the word “crisis”. She argues that this worldwide “crisis talk” may overshadow our awareness of the many successes of multilateral cooperation and that it may function as a reason to evade from norms, legal ones as well as social. Read the text here.
Crisis talk – or, Thoughts on Europe Day in the aftermath of the Kastelholm Peace Talks
Head of Research, Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, Associate Professor of International law, is currently on leave from her position as Director to work with research matters. Spiliopoulou Åkermark has published a number of books, edited volumes, articles and reports in the fields of international law, human rights, indigenous peoples and minority rights. Mariehamn, on Europe Day 9.5.2016 One is struck nowadays by the frequency of the use of the word ‘crisis’. In newspapers, on social media, in political speech, in scientific articles, in conference themes, everywhere this ominous sense of uncertainty and fear is spread across the globe, in particular in its so called ‘western’ part. We learn that there is a crisis in financial markets, a crisis in budget deficits, a crisis in international law, a crisis in international organizations, a crisis in European integration, a crisis in family structures, etc. etc. I ask therefore myself whether this ‘crisis talk’ has a special function in our lives, individual as well as social. Inspired by the legal idea and notion of force majeure, I argue hereby that one such function for the repeated use of the term ‘crisis’ today is in fact the escape or even evasion from norms, legal ones as […]