This is the fourth webinar in the Virtual Dialogues series centred on the newly released book Global Cooperation in Times of Crisis: Grasping the Changing Mood of the World. The series explores how “epochal moods” shape the possibilities for global cooperation and asks what became of the spirit associated with 2015, marked by the adoption of major international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

While earlier sessions focused on the nature of moods and of crisis, as well as the concrete implications for crisis for various actors engaged in global (development) cooperation, the present webinar centres on how crisis moods come about and spread.

Again, a crisis is not an objective condition but a subjective descriptor of situations. When crisis moods spread, it may be due to objective hardships, including wars or disasters, but also due to changes in narrative or the way that crises are mediated. Public opinion is one way frame that has been used to discuss this phenomenon. It manifests in quite concrete ways, including budget cuts, new priorities, or the severing of existing forms of collaboration.

The webinar will explore the spread of crisis moods across various domains and sectors. We will consider how it becomes established intersubjectively that we find ourselves in some kind of moment in time that is different from previous moments. Participants will reflect on the spread of crisis moods and the consequences of pessimistic outlooks. Recognising the mooded nature of shifts in attitudes towards global cooperation will, in turn, allow us to rethink how we might regain long-lost hope in human betterment in the decades ahead.

Speakers:

• Reidar Staupe - Associate Professor of Societal Security and Aurora Fellow at UiT The Arctic University of Norway and Adjunct Associate Professor at Oslo New College
• Miriam Matejova - Associate Professor in political science at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University
• Monika Gabriela Bartoszewicz - Professor in Societal Security at the Arctic University of Norway

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