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This article offers a conceptual framework that broadens and enhances our understanding of the role of ‘history’ in contemporary governance and the attempts by policy‐makers to ‘manage’ critical issues. Building upon the literature on historical analogies in policy‐making, we distinguish three dimensions that clarify how the past may emerge in and affect the current deliberations, choices and rhetoric of policy‐makers. We apply this in a comparative examination of two cases of crisis management where historical analogies played an important part: the Swedish response to (alleged) submarine intrusions in 1982, and the European Union sanctions against Austria in 1999. We induce from the case comparison new concepts and hypotheses for understanding the role of historical analogies in public policy‐making and crisis management.