ABSTRACT
In the closing chapter, I argue for the urgent need to tackle pandemic threats by working across disciplines and enabling public participation in contributing to decision-making. This will allow us to achieve more effective pandemic mitigation under conditions of high uncertainty, as typical of any pandemic outbreak. Excluding publics as stakeholders (as is currently the case in pandemic preparedness) is problematic. Treating publics as either merely compliant or panicky (as is currently the case in much pandemic planning) is both a missed opportunity and a recipe for disaster. The current focus on how to reach the public with an official message, within a model of communication that is one-way, is ineffective. It fails to create an important feedback loop about citizens’ experiences and priorities in relation to the measures implemented during a pandemic. The chapter discusses the need to move towards decision-making that is more inclusive of all relevant stakeholders and more procedurally fair and transparent, a move towards what I will call participatory crisis governance.
