How Indonesia should navigate the polycrisis world – Wed, February 1 2023

We have long been living in a rapidly changing environment, and we tend to think the new chapter of a decade will be different. This is often the case. However, as we entered the decade of the 2020s, we began to face entirely new problems and challenges. Indeed, those problems have come after one another and have created significant challenges.

Adam Tooze, a professor of history at Columbia University, has a relevant term to describe the challenges we face these days. He popularized the word “polycrisis”.

A normal crisis emerges from a problem that challenges our typical abilities and hence causes us to question our identity. On the other hand, in a polycrisis, we encounter shocks that look disparate but are, in fact, interlocking and interacting in such a way that the overall effect is overwhelming. In short, they happen all at once and they tend to reinforce each other.