The Polycrisis and Systemic Change in Lithuania: From Fragmentation to Integration

ABSTRACT The main purpose of the article is to assess the impact of two interconnected crises—COVID‐19 and irregular migration—on systemic change in Lithuania between 2020 and 2024. We examine how the country's response to the polycrisis has led to reforms in its crisis management system. Our theoretical framework integrates ideas from new institutionalism, complexity theory, and multi‐level governance to examine the impact of a polycrisis characterised by the simultaneous pressures of a global pandemic and authoritarian hybrid aggression, which constitutes the article's main conceptual novelty. Focusing on Lithuania, the article draws on comparative results of two case studies. Methodologically, these studies employ the process tracing method to assess how empirical patterns of institutional responses match our theoretical expectations based on desk research and semi‐structured interviews with key Lithuanian policymakers. The main system‐wide change in Lithuania's crisis management system was the introduction of vertical and horizontal coordination arrangements, consistent with the logic of consequentiality and the dynamics of system complexity.