Introduction

The notion – which now approaches the status of conventional wisdom – that policy breakthroughs can be achieved in times of crisis, finds an academic echo in the common-sense idea that something particularly useful can be learned about a significant socio-economic phenomenon, such as government procurement, by studying its performance in times of crisis. Indeed, that insight drives both this chapter and the previous one. This chapter proceeds by examining and comparing the lessons that emerge – or which are believed to emerge – from three recent episodes of political or economic crisis in the US, each of which had significant consequences for the procurement system of the US national (‘federal’) government. The three episodes examined are: (i) the procurement response to Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast of the US in the summer of 2005; (ii) the procurement issues that emerged in response to the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the ensuing US military engagements in Iraq and in Afghanistan; and (iii) the procurement aspects of the federal government's stimulus response to the current ‘Great Recession’.

This contribution is not offered as a piece of primary empirical research but as a vehicle for meta-analysis. There are several reasons for choosing this approach. First, with respect to some of these crisis episodes, the primary work has already been done elsewhere.