ABSTRACT
Summits are potential ‘crises in the making’. In the context of continuous threats, urgency and conflicting interests, (often ad hoc) networks have to provide public safety and reliability of critical infrastructures and vital public services under conditions of high uncertainty. Yet not all summits become crises. Peaceful summits seem to depend on the effective cooperation and coordination of a variety of stakeholders. Much can be learned from collaboration in the preparation phase and its effects on the outcome of summits in terms of security and public safety. Therefore, we study the antecedents of effective collaborative crisis management in two cases: the G20 Summit in Toronto in 2010 and the NSS Summit in The Hague in 2014. The comparison of these two cases shows that the type of problem framing, including diverse perspectives in the network organization, cultural differences between network organizations, and a multidisciplinary network organization contribute to effective collaborative crisis management in securing summits. These findings can guide further research on securing high profile security events through collaboration in governance networks.
