There is no longer a question of whether an organization will suffer from a crisis; it is rather the question of when. It has been a shift in the discourse of the crisis communication area. Focus now lies in how to prevent and prepare for these extraordinary events instead of reacting when the crisis already has occured.

This study aims to expand the crisis management area in a Swedish context by examining Swedish authorities and their capabilities to be proactive in the case of crisis management. Based of Mi- troffs framework for Crisis Leadership, the authorities capabilities have been analyzed through a quantitative and qualitative survey. From the 70 authorities that were contacted, 42 surveys were returned, resulting in an acceptable 60% response rate.

The results from the survey show that the Swedish authorities do not fulfil the ideal for develop- ing a proactive crisis management. The four factors, crisis types, crisis mechanisms, crisis system and crisis stakeholder, are indicators for a proactive stance. These were not represented in the data that was gathered, except the third factor which were having a proactive organizational culture along with preparedness activities such as having a crisis plan and a crisis leadership team.

The conclusion is that Swedish authorities needs to develop a more proactive approach to their crisis management regarding good relationships with their stakeholders, having a crisis portfolio that covers different crisis families, implement more signal detectors and strategies to prevent cri- sis, for example corporate social responsibilities program.