BOOK REVIEW: Simple Solutions to Complex Catastrophes: Dialectics of Peace, Climate, Finance, and Health

Abstract

In our era, where striking developments unfold rapidly and crises influence one another with unprecedented speed, challenges such as climate change (see Baysal and Karakaş 2017) and the COVID-19 pandemic (see Eminoğlu, Unutulmaz, and Özerim 2020) may initially appear distinct, but they are deeply interlinked in their causes, consequences, and responses. In Simple Solutions to Complex Catastrophes: Dialectics of Peace, Climate, Finance, and Health, John Braithwaite addresses precisely this complexity and offers an optimistic perspective on how cascading crises can be brought under control. The author focuses on four crisis domains— climate change, crime–war chains, pandemics, and financial meltdowns—and especially highlights the role of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) as existential threats intricately linked to security, environmental, and health crises. Braithwaite adopts a dialectical and interdisciplinary methodology, combining conceptual analysis with empirical insight to examine interconnected global crises. He emphasizes the role of simple yet adaptive institutions in crisis prevention, drawing on historical case studies and the Peacebuilding Compared dataset to explore hypotheses related to peace and institutional resilience.

Keywords

peace, climate, finance

Citation

Çağla Vural, “John Braithwaite, Simple Solutions to Complex Catastrophes: Dialectics of Peace, Climate, Finance, and Health (Cham, Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)”, Uluslararası İlişkiler, Advanced Online Publication, 22 August 2025, pp. 1-4. DOI: 10.33458/uidergisi.1761216.

Affiliations

Çağla VURAL Dr., Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of International Relations, Akdeniz University, Antalya E-Mail: [email protected] Orcid: 0000-0001-8474-2316