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Many science fiction films feature a scene where an alien lands on Earth and is puzzled by the bizarre antics of human beings performing even the simplest of tasks. Perhaps aliens would struggle to make sense of how leaders of the world have responded to the global financial crisis. In the face of arguably the biggest single threat to world stability in recent times, some leaders virtually ignored it (former US President George W. Bush), some said the system was near to collapse (Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd), some said they did not help cause the crisis in any way (Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong), others said they held a degree of culpability (UK Chancellor, Alistair Darling) and almost everyone started with one position only to take a contrary stance some months later. What is going on? Why have the leaders of the world responded in a multitude of different and constantly changing ways to essentially the same problem?
This puzzle goes to the heart of political science and public policy. As Shapiro and Bedi (2007) suggest, we can see the world as little more than the product of a series of disparate contingencies or we can see it primarily as the operation of certain laws or at least tendencies in political behaviour. Most political science seeks to impose some sense of order on the world to explain patterns of continuity and regularity, as well as change. Hence, we have perspectives such as new institutionalism, rational choice, group and network theory, socioeconomic power and ideational-based models. All attempt to explain the world and its patterns of political behaviour. Many such analyses of the global financial crisis will no doubt emerge in the years to come.
This chapter is not the opportunity to dive into these models and apply them to the global financial crisis. It is, however, an opportunity to put forward a framework that I would argue does help identify a constant amid the diversity and dynamics of framing responses. It is based on the assumption that leaders will always attempt to successfully manage a crisis. It does not claim to be the only constant, or that leadership ‘agency’ is all powerful, but I consider it to be an important finding that has the potential to be factored into many different policy models. Part of the thinking here is derived from work I have been undertaking on policy success in relation to non-crisis issues (Marsh and McConnell forthcoming; McConnell forthcoming). Let me explain further.