The COVID-19 pandemic challenged crisis management approaches grounded in principles of anticipation. Drawing on a comparison between Belgium and Quebec, with particular attention to the management of the health crisis in long-term care organizations in Brussels and Montreal, this thesis examines the role of improvisation in governmental crisis management.
Rather than merely responding to the limitations of crisis management planning, improvisation reveals the shortcomings of anticipatory approaches to crisis management and exposes how improvisation itself can be instrumentalized as a mode of government. In doing so, the thesis also explores the political and geographical implications of improvisation for contemporary crisis management.