ABSTRACT
Panic has long figured as a principle consideration guiding strategies of emergency governance. Its
spectacular fall from a core operational assumption organizing emergency response well into the
final days of the ColdWar to its current status within academic literatures as ‘myth’ (Clarke, 2002;
Cocking et al., 2009; Johnson, 1985; Keating, 1982; Sheppard et al., 2006; Tierney, 2003;Wessely,
2005) must therefore be regarded as a pivotal event in the history of emergency governance.
