Crisis management in cities: politico-administrative complementarity during the reception of Ukrainian refugees

This study investigates politico-administrative relations across four key crisismanagement tasks: sense-making, decision-making and coordination, mean-ing-making and account-giving, and learning during the Ukrainian refugeecrisis. Drawing on a multiple-case study of three medium-to-large-sizedFlemish cities that hosted the highest numbers of refugees and established‘emergency villages’, it addresses the question: ‘How complementary are theinteractions between politics and administration in cities during the manage-ment of the Ukrainian refugee crisis?’ The study analyses how politicians andcivil servants interact and collaborate in crisis settings. The findings offera revised interpretation of Svara’s complementarity model, adapted to thedynamics of crisis management. They provide new insights into politico-administrative interactions and role divisions, with implications for understand-ing centralisation tendencies and the influence of the crisis’s origin. Thesecontributions advance the theoretical and practical understanding of comple-mentarity in crisis governance.