Another creeping crisis?

We are used to thinking of a creeping crisis, like slow violence, as one that builds up and up until catastrophe is triggered. But then one could just as well say that, given the gap between policies-as-stated and policies-as-implemented, implementation is the creeping crisis of policy-making and planning.

Yet, what is the crisis that results from policies not implemented as stated or planned? What’s the crisis in the longstanding interpretation of implementation as de facto policymaking?

Aren’t we better off for the realism? One example is it takes time to correct for new regulations whose real-time compliance by control room operators would reduce their infrastructure reliability and safety in the situation they face, then and there. Regulation for reliability and safety can’t just be a matter of planning and foresight by the regulator of record only, no matter how careful beforehand. As one interviewee put it to us, you can’t pretest real-time.