ABSTRACT
Over the last few decades, considerable attention has been paid by scholars in political science and other disciplines to the frequency and the impact of long-term change in the international environment. Increasing in frequency and scope, multi-scalar demands have been placed at the doors of policy makers at the regional, national and international levels to develop and revise strategies in coping with key events and critical junctures affecting global and local politics. Such attention has been enhanced with recurrent debates – such as the one on climate change – that are accompanied by a further focusing of the minds of scholars and practitioners on the regular instances of unexpected consequences of change brought about by means of man-made or natural disasters.
