Understanding Crisis Committees
Crisis committees differ from General Assemblies in that you are often representing a person (real, historical, or fantasy-based character) rather than a country. Within a crisis committee, you will be expected to emulate this character’s goals, views, and alignments as you work with others in the committee to solve common issues. These issues change as the committee progresses, with new developments occurring cyclically in updates called “crisis breaks”.
Structure
A typical crisis committee will observe a semblance of the following structure each crisis cycle:
- 1. Crisis break
- 2. A few moderated caucuses discussing events having unfolded in the crisis break, solutions, directives on the table, responses to specific events
- 3. Typically, these moderated caucuses will begin with a Round Robin for all delegates to share thoughts on the update and preliminary plans for their directives, however this is not an enforced structure and delegates are encouraged to propose any kind of motion they would like to participate in.
- 4. An unmoderated caucus often maxing out at about ten minutes in length for delegates to merge directives and submit to the dias
- 5. Voting procedure for directives, with speeches for and against, and time for amendments.
Within a crisis committee, your responsibilities are two-fold: frontroom and backroom.
Frontroom
In the front room, you as a delegate must work with other delegates to create resolutions to the crisis breaks presented to the committee. These ‘resolutions’ look similar to those in GAs, but they are shorter, require much less detail, and are comprehensive. They are known as directives. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see a sample directive; noting the brevity yet creativity within the clauses.
As delegates add to directives, they name themselves as sponsors. When delegates are interested in directives, however do not contribute any material, they add themselves as signatories to show support.
It is common for delegates to write their own directives in response to the crisis break, and then begin to circulate their directives around the room as debate continues, with aims of their committee members signing or signatory-ing on their directive. After a few moderated caucuses have elapsed, delegates will take their individual directives into the unmod to merge with those who have similar ideas in their directives, taking care to eliminate clauses where redundancy has occurred. Often, competition is emphasized in this merging process. For example, the dias may only be taking a total of two or three directives, each capped at three pages. Assuming that a twenty-person committee has had each person write about a page’s worth of clauses, delegates within that committee must do their best to get their clauses within relevant format and as part of a larger directive to submit to the dias before time runs out, or the total number of directives have been submitted.
Of course, delegates can always choose to submit their directive without merging, providing that they have met any sponsor or signatory minimums set by the dias during the directive’s circulation prior or during the unmoderated caucus. This decision should be well contemplated with regards to the amount of support that the directive has received in the room.
Following the unmod (and any possible extensions to the unmoderated caucus) elapsing, the room will typically enter voting procedure, where delegates will motion for the directives to be read out in the order they would like (order submitted vs reverse order of submission), with the number of speakers they would like to advocate for or against the directive (often 2 for, 2 against; with 1 for 1 against in smaller committees) and any amendment period (with the method for amendment specified- e.g. amendments read aloud, submitted via slips to the dias, total time for amendments).
Often, the ending of directive voting coincides with the end of the crisis cycle, and the backroom will enter at this time with your notepads and a new crisis break (More on this in a second!).
Unlike a General Assembly committee, a crisis committee will rinse-and-repeat the crisis cycle, where the same process of moderated caucus responding to the event are then followed by directives aiming to tackle those issues is repeated over and over. This means that there is no specific ‘structure’ for each session, and sessions will look similar in structure even as committee content slowly increases in divisiveness and difficulty.
Backroom
We’ve already said that crisis delegates have two responsibilities- here is the second one.
As you work through everything needed to perform well in the front room, you will also be tasked with managing your crisis notepads, or backroom performance. You will use these notes to amass resources, carry out secret actions, and ultimately gain influence in the front room. The crisis breaks that are presented by the backroom team are often a mixture of events that they’ve created and the results of actions that you have made in your notepads.
In these notepads, you’ll be writing to a person that can give you some kinds of advantages or resources that your character doesn’t quite have on their own. At MUNI XXVII, we use the two-pad system. This means that throughout the conference, you’ll be writing to one person on each pad (e.g. one pad to Phineas, one pad to Ferb… you get the idea). You can invent these characters, or use “real” people or characters that would exist at the same time, place, or setting of these committees. Don’t make your contacts someone else in committee- they’re already right there, so send them a sticky note if you want to collaborate with them on a JPD to cause some chaos. Crisis pads addressed to other characters in the committee will be rejected.
Most of the time, you’ll also have to draft directives to deal with the ‘problems’ that you’ve given everyone in the front room, so don’t blow your cover! For example, if you’ve set up communications with a mad scientist in one of your two pads and asked your scientist to trigger a rat invasion in the streets of Paris, make sure you contribute a clause or two to a directive that aims to poison all the rats.
It’s a big deal to ‘break’ frontroom- it means that your crisis arc is on the move!
Parlimentary Procedure
Model UN utilizes a format for conducting efficient debate and maintaining order, especially with larger committee sizes. Here is a quick overview of the kind of procedures you can expect to see. Each of these motions can be given by delegates when the chairs asks "are there any motions on the floor?" Chairs notice delegates that give consistently good motions, so make sure this is a priority.
| Motion | Purpose | Vote Required |
|---|---|---|
| Point of Order | Correct an error in procedure by the chair. | None |
| Point of Inquiry | Ask a question regarding the committee proceedings. | None |
| Motion to Adjourn | End the session. | Majority |
| Motion to Suspend Debate | Recess the session. | Majority |
| Motion to Introduce Directives in (order received/reverse order) with (1 for, 1 against / 2 for, 2 against), with a __ second speaking time | Present directives and proceed to vote on them. A specific motion to vote is not required as the directives will be voted on following reading of each individual directive and the speeches for or against. | Majority |
| Motion for a moderated caucus | Facilitate focused discussion on a specific sub-topic by giving speeches. Within this, you should specify the length of the moderate caucus, the length of each speech, and the topic you wish to discuss. If your motion passes, you are guaranteed a speech. | Majority |
| Motion for an unmoderated caucus | Facilitate informal discussion and negotiation, through open debate and conversations. Usually where delegates freely discuss solutions and write resolutions. Specify the length of the unmoderated caucus. | Majority |
Getting Started
To get started, review the background guide provided by the committee. This document will contain information regarding the topics, chair guidelines, and potential solutions to the problem. It will also include references to good research papers that you can reference in your preparation. Make sure to not only research your nation's policy, but understand other nation's past solutions and their possible actions.