Cameron Cadogan is the Under-Secretary General of Committees for Capital Model United Nations (CAPMUN). He formerly served as the Vice-President of Delegate Coordination and Co-Vice President of Training for the University of Ottawa Model United Nations Association (uOMUNA). He has attended more than 28 conferences along with being a chair and crisis staff multiple times. He has also performed in various “in-house” simulations. Cameron is extremely passionate about Model UN: he started in Grade Eleven. Consequently, he deeply cherishes Model UN.
This journal entry discusses potential reasons behind the popularity of crisis committees.
During the current academic year, I served as Under-Secretary General of Committees for CAPMUN 2024. In that role, one of the many duties I had was assigning delegates to their committees. Delegates were able to list their preferences in the signup form and I did my best to accommodate them. I noticed that our crisis committees had a massive amount of demand, much higher than the number of positions that were available. This did not come as much of a surprise. I had once overseen planning journeys to conferences for the uOttawa Model UN Association, and while in that role there was a similar pattern. Prospective conference attendees often wanted to go into crisis committees first and foremost despite the unfortunate fact that most conferences have significantly fewer spaces in crisis committees compared to GAs and specialized committees. Similar patterns have been observed at many other conferences.
I can certainly say that I love crisis. Of the 28 conferences I have attended, 13 of them have seen me in the role of a crisis delegate. Many people seem to also enjoy crisis. Earlier in the week, I put up a poll on my Instagram, asking those who had done model UN what their favourite type of committee was. The results were interesting. Of 70 respondents, 43 voted for crisis, 17 specialized, and only 10 GA. I was surprised. While crisis coming first was not a shock, the sheer margin of victory was. Crisis absolutely crushed the other options, with specialized coming in a distant second. Why is this the case? Why do so many people want to go into crisis committees? I would posit that the main appeal of crisis committees lies in three key components: the dynamism inherent in its format, the power that individual delegates can exercise, and the topics often covered in crisis committees.
The results of a poll I placed on my Instagram story asking Model UN participants what their favourite kind of committee was.
According to Google, dynamism is defined as “the quality of being characterized by vigorous activity and progress.” To many degrees, this is present in every type of committee, with delegates often able to fiercely debate, go back and forth while negotiating on resolutions, and have lively presentations. So why do I single-out crisis committees for their dynamism and not, say, a General Assembly? Simply put, crisis committees tend to have far more dynamism than the other forms. In a crisis, delegates often have to deal with constantly changing situations that can send the committee in a completely different direction. Earlier this year at McMUN 2024, I was part of a crisis committee where delegates were members of former short-lived British Prime Minister Liz Truss’ Cabinet. We were frequently presented with new information that changed our priorities in terms of debate and directives. On several occasions, the crisis staff would warn us that failure to solve a specific issue would cause it to get worse.
Similar warnings and notices from crisis staff are quite common in these kinds of committees. For instance, many conferences will have a “timed crisis” in which a certain major issue is presented to the committee and a set amount of time is allocated to the solving of said issue. Private directives are usually not taken during these periods. In my experience, timed crisis situations are amazing. The feeling of working against the clock with other delegates to brainstorm solutions, debate their effectiveness, note them all down in a well-formatted public directive, and see what effect it has on the overall arc of committee post-submission is very exciting. Additionally, crisis committees run at a much faster pace than GAs and specialized committees. In a crisis, public directives are constantly being passed around, introduced, debated, and voted upon. A delegate has to pay attention to the public directives and debate in the fast-paced front room while being able to formulate and execute the arc they have in the backroom. This does take getting used to and it is understandable that some people may not want a committee to operate at such a high speed, but many people are drawn in by this.
Another key driver of fascination with crisis is the power that individual delegates can exercise. Again, in every form of committee, there is a certain level of personal power that is present. This personal power manifests itself in the form of speaking, debating, idea-making, and negotiation. With powerful speeches, clever ideas, and savvy negotiation skills, one can go very far in a GA or specialized. All of these skills are incredibly useful in crisis committees, but there is another element present: private directives (or crisis notes). These allow people to communicate with other actors not present in the committee who are effectively played by the crisis staff. As a delegate, you can, in theory, ask for anything. While it is not guaranteed that the crisis staff will grant all of your requests (indeed, learning how to write effective crisis notes often comes from trial-and-error), there is still quite a significant amount that one can accomplish. You can procure weapons, start companies, take over countries, maneuver for political power….the list goes on and on and on. So much can be done and a lot of surprising events can occur. At CONMUN 2023, a delegate in my committee created a militia of fast food workers. At LCIMUN 2018, the conference where I won my first gavel, I fought for control of territory with another delegate before we came to a fair compromise where we were both left in a good position. The DISEC GA in CANiMUN 2020 was converted into a crisis several days into the conference (that conference was quite a story unto itself), and I conducted a submarine raid to steal an important diamond that many in the committee wanted for themselves. McMUN 2022, which was online, saw the character I represented get killed relatively quickly for investigating meat used in a pizza joint. Later, the delegates were canonically served Meat Lover’s pizza which they were subsequently told had the remains of my character as the meat. During the August 2023 uOMUNA inhouse, I worked feverishly to foment a “gamer uprising.” Seeing the reaction of all the other delegates and staff was one of the best moments in all my years of MUN. It is also common in crisis committees for delegates to work against the rest of the committee in various ways in order to further their own interest, which may or may not work out for them depending on how The point I am trying to explain is that in crisis, you can do significantly more than in any other form of committee, which is a huge driver behind why so many people love it. Almost anything can happen!
I personally believe that the power argument is the most important reason as to why so many people love crisis. However, the topics of crisis committees are a significant explainer to their popularity. I will list several crisis committees that I have either seen or participated in: Yahoo Board of Directors, Liz Truss’ Cabinet, Southern Africa Crisis of 1973, Cuban Missile Crisis, Russian Revolution of 1905, Berlin Blockade, Salem Witch Trials. Many of these topics are interesting to those who may be fascinated with international relations, history or politics, which I feel confident in saying that most MUN delegates are. It is certainly possible that some people who may not necessarily care much about private directives still sign up for crisis committees because of the topic. This would also explain why some kinds of specialized committees are also quite popular depending on what topics they cover. Topic matters in every committee, true, but I do think that the proliferation of fascinating topics in crisis helps to drive their popularity.
None of this is meant to disrespect GAs and specialized committees: on the contrary, I have had incredible experiences in all types of Model UN committees over the past six and a half years. This article was simply an attempt to explain why so many people love crisis committees, which remain incredibly popular.