‘Give us the numbers!’: sovereign capture and the undermining of shared situational awareness in the UK’s COVID-19 response

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ABSTRACT Shared situational awareness is advanced as a solution to the problem of collaborative decision-making in multi-agency emergency responses. By harnessing information and communication technologies to construct and distribute a common understanding of the event, shared situational awareness promises to optimise, distribute and devolve decision-making, thus improving the overall speed and efficiency of emergency responses. However, in the context of actual emergencies shared situational awareness is found to routinely breakdown. This paper draws upon 41 interviews conducted with emergency responders on their experience of using ResilienceDirect to manage shared situational awareness in the UK COVID-19 response. We argue that while shared situational awareness attempts to technologise the problem of sovereign decision-making in emergencies, UK emergency response frameworks contain a latent potential for sovereign capture. As the COVID-19 response demonstrates, an atmosphere of distrust; desire for secrecy and control; and the ubiquity of hierarchies throughout UK Civil Contingencies permitted the reactualisation of sovereign modes of control to frustrate and displace bottom-up modes of emergency organisation meant to guide UK emergency responses. Elucidating the impediments to achieving shared situational awareness within actual response raises urgent questions regarding the robustness of shared situational awareness to political interference within major emergency events.