ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept of crisis management that, like most political concepts, is used imprecisely and in different senses. It discusses the principles of crisis management advanced in the scholarly literature: this reveals a sufficient measure of consensus that one may reasonably speak of a contemporary doctrine of crisis management. The chapter considers a number of criticisms of this doctrine and takes up certain issues which arise from the critique. The realm of coercive diplomacy is far more extensive than the realm of crisis management. A major theme in contemporary strategic studies, the principle of flexible or graduated response is included in all eight discussions of crisis management. The chapter attempts a balance sheet: to what extent has progress in understanding been achieved, to what extent are new approaches being explored, to what extent do the problems of crisis diplomacy nonetheless remain elusive?
