Simple solutions are illustrated by improved peacemaking and step by step progress toward abolition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. This helps prevent environmental, pandemic and financial catastrophes. John's method across four kinds of crises is first to prioritize simple principles and simple institutions that prevent coupled catastrophes from cascading one to the other. The next step is to pursue requisite variety in responses by diagnosing dialectically when additional interventions will and will not add value for crisis control. This dialectics of shuttling between simple and complex prevention mounts a novel challenge to realist international relations theory.

John's Open Access book is now available at this Springer Nature website.

About the speaker

John Braithwaite is an interdisciplinary RegNet scholar who has worked for decades on crises of war, the financial system, environment and health.

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Image credit: 'Simple solutions to complex catastrophes: dialectics of peace, climate, finance, and health' book cover from Springer Nature.