In the previous article, we discussed the growing mismatch between a state shaped by past agendas and a society undergoing accelerated transformation. The central thesis was that, despite the importance of fiscal debate and the evaluation of public accounts, the problem is deeper – institutional, organizational, and political – and cannot be resolved through fiscal balance/sustainability. In this second discussion, the focus shifts to how this mismatch manifests itself in the present, in the form of a state that operates under almost permanent emergency conditions.
For a long time, the idea of emergency was associated with something extraordinary. Natural disasters, epidemics, wars, or major economic crises were treated as temporary interruptions of normality. The State, in this context, operated mainly under a regime of stability, activating exceptional measures when order was broken – and then returning to the regular functioning of its institutions.
This arrangement presupposed that normality existed and that the exception was, in fact, exceptional. What seems to be happening today is something qualitatively different. Emergencies have ceased to be isolated episodes and have become part of the backdrop of social life. Pandemics, extreme weather events, humanitarian crises, population displacements, economic shocks, and geopolitical tensions not only repeat themselves but overlap. In this new scenario, the State can no longer "return to normal" after the crisis. It begins to operate within the crisis – or in the increasingly shorter interval between successive crises.
The pandemic as a structural revelation
No episode illustrates this thesis better than the Covid-19 pandemic, often described as an unprecedented event – and, in many respects, it truly was. But perhaps its main legacy was not its exceptionality, but rather its ability to reveal, abruptly and inescapably, structural weaknesses that were already present in state action. The pandemic functioned as an extreme stress test on already strained institutions.
In just a few days, the Brazilian state – like so many others – was called upon to coordinate healthcare systems under extreme stress, rapidly expand hospital beds and staffing, secure critical supplies, sustain income, preserve jobs, and ensure the minimum functioning of the economy. All of this had to be done under conditions of high uncertainty, with incomplete information, severe fiscal constraints, intense social pressure, and open conflicts between levels of government. Added to these difficulties were deep divisions within society itself, amplified by the role of social media, which accelerated the circulation of information, misinformation, and immediate moral judgments, further reducing the space for coordination, consensus, and institutional learning.
To act, it was necessary to suspend rules, create legal exceptions, approve laws at an accelerated pace, relax controls, improvise administrative arrangements, and resort to capabilities that were not fully structured. The pandemic concretely exposed the limits of federal coordination, the fragility of the State's human resources, the dependence on global supply chains, and the difficulty of making complex decisions in a politically polarized environment.
Mistakes were made, and successes too. The central point, however, is not in the assessment of these specific decisions. It lies in the fact that situations of this type are no longer improbable and that the contemporary state is increasingly exposed to systemic shocks that simultaneously demand speed, complex coordination, political legitimacy, and administrative capacity – attributes that cannot be built under emergency conditions.
Accumulated emergencies and decision-making under pressure.
If the pandemic made this new pattern explicit, other events have dramatically confirmed it. More frequent and intense climate disasters, migration crises, and international conflicts – even when geographically distant – have begun to produce immediate domestic effects, putting pressure on public services, supply chains, and economic expectations.
The decisive factor is not merely the repetition of crises, but their accumulation. The State is called upon to respond to new shocks before it can learn the lessons of the previous one. Planning, evaluating, and correcting policies becomes more difficult not due to a lack of technical capacity, but because the time for reflection clashes with the pressure for immediate responses. The emergency ceases to be an isolated event and begins to shape the very functioning of the State.
In this environment, the decision-making process is transformed. Decisions are made under high uncertainty, with incomplete data and consequences that are difficult to anticipate, while the margin for error decreases. Under continuous public scrutiny, social networks, short attention spans, and polarized environments, the space for technical explanations, gradual revisions, and incremental adjustments is reduced.
The State thus ceases to be evaluated primarily by results over time and begins to be judged by its ability to react quickly, signal action, and demonstrate control – even if this control is often only apparent. The short timeframe of politics and communication takes precedence over the long timeframe of public policies, compressing the space for planning, learning, and course correction.
The Firefighter State and the Delayed Future
When the logic of urgency is prolonged, it tends to become institutionalized. Measures conceived as temporary become permanent; exceptions become precedents; improvised solutions replace structured policies. Without this being explicitly acknowledged, the State begins to operate according to an implicit logic of continuous emergency.
This mode of operation has high institutional costs. The normalization of the exception weakens rules, procedures, and control mechanisms essential to public action in democratic contexts. Under constant pressure, decisions tend to prioritize what is visible, immediate, and politically profitable, to the detriment of building lasting capacities and strategies capable of reducing the recurrence of the crises themselves.
The problem arises when state action begins to be organized almost exclusively like that of a firefighter: putting out successive fires consumes enormous institutional energy, mobilizes scarce resources, and produces a permanent sense of urgency, but does not reduce vulnerabilities or prevent new fires. The present ends up being managed at the expense of the future.
Operating continuously in this mode cumulatively wears down the State. Human resources are depleted, administrative structures are strained, and coordination mechanisms become more fragile. This wear and tear rarely appears in fiscal statistics or short-term indicators. It manifests itself in the loss of institutional memory, the difficulty of coordination between government bodies and levels, and the silent erosion of the capacity to produce consistent policies over time.
Paradoxically, the more is demanded of the State, the more incapable it appears in the eyes of society. The difficulty in solving complex problems immediately is interpreted as inefficiency or negligence, fueling institutional distrust and reinforcing a cycle of increasing demands. At this point, the problem ceases to be merely operational or fiscal: it becomes institutional and political.
The logic of the firefighter state helps explain this impasse. By concentrating efforts almost exclusively on responding to successive emergencies, the state postpones fundamental decisions – those that do not produce immediate results, but are indispensable for reducing vulnerabilities, reorganizing capabilities, and preparing society for the challenges that are already looming. It is this systematically postponed future that is beginning to take its toll.
While the State mobilizes to respond to successive emergencies, other tensions continue to accumulate and be dealt with under the same short-sighted logic. Structural problems are addressed as isolated episodes, often through "magical" solutions, announcements of quick impact, or measures designed more to signal action and produce immediate political effects than to address the root causes of the problems or reduce their recurrence.
The result is a permanently occupied – but structurally unprepared – state. The focus shifts from prevention and capacity building to continuous reaction to ongoing shocks, often without institutional learning, without capacity building, and without reducing the vulnerabilities that fuel future crises.
In this sense, the central problem is not the existence of emergencies – they are real and will continue to occur – but the fact that the State has begun to operate as if the future could always be postponed. A State that lives by putting out fires not only fails to prevent them, but also silently compromises its ability to prepare for what lies ahead.
It is from this point – from the future that ceases to be prepared for in the name of permanent urgency – that the next conversation about social protection throughout the life cycle of citizens begins.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Unicamp.
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