Public Health

The Age of Uncertainty: Risks and Crises in the Organocene – Olivier Borraz

This course will analyze how our societies cope with uncertainty. It will begin by describing the deployment of risk management tools, designed to bring within the realm of governance phenomena whose nature, origin, properties, effects, or duration are initially unknown. It will then present the crisis management mechanisms that have emerged in the wake of the disasters that have occurred since the beginning of the 21st century, enabling organizations to exchange data and information, coordinate their actions, and respond within tight time frames.

This shift from risk to crisis reveals a deeper transformation: in a crisis, uncertainty is no longer tied to the triggering event itself—a virus, a disaster, an accident—but to the capacity of organizations to act collectively in the face of an existential threat. It therefore calls for a shift in perspective, from the event itself to the dense organizational fabric within which it occurs and the difficulties faced by actors in building a shared understanding of the situation and then effectively coordinating their actions. For crises are, above all, organizational phenomena.

Once this observation has been established, we must clarify its characteristics and implications. What does it mean to manage a crisis? To what conceptions of the state, the law, or citizenship does this function refer? Are crises likely to yield lasting lessons? Can we measure their impact? This program aims to analyze the success of the concepts of crisis and crisis management in contemporary societies, as well as the questions raised by this new normal. It is a paradoxical normality, since each crisis is presented as irreducibly unique. Yet, when viewed in sequence, patterns emerge, leading us to question what still eludes the label of “crisis.”

Created in partnership with the national agency Santé publique France, the Public Health Annual Chair is designed to promote excellence in research and intellectual debate at the highest level on public health issues.