Title

Planning For Disasters And Responding To Catastrophes: Error Of The Third Type In Disaster Policy And Planning

Keywords

Catastrophic disasters; Community capacity building; Crisis leadership; Disasters; Error of the third type; Networks

Abstract

This paper states that the public increasingly expects better public sector leadership before, during and after catastrophic disasters than it has seen in the past. The massive numbers of public, non-profit and private organisations involved in catastrophic disasters require extensive ability to have horizontal, as well as vertical, communication, coordination and decision-making capabilities. High performance in response to catastrophic disasters requires an ability to assess and adapt capacity rapidly, restore or enhance disrupted or inadequate communications, utilise uncharacteristically flexible decision making and expand coordination and trust of emergency response organisations. These requirements are superimposed on conventional bureaucratic systems that rely on relatively rigid plans, exact decision protocols and formal relationships that assume uninterrupted communications. Yet, policy makers and policy analysts frequently focus on certain aspects of disaster managements after a significant disaster and commit error of the third type. This paper suggests investing in building bottom-up community capacity in a networked environment. © 2008, Inderscience Publishers.

Publication Date

1-1-2008

Publication Title

International Journal of Public Policy

Volume

3

Issue

5-6

Number of Pages

313-327

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1504/IJPP.2008.020985

Socpus ID

55749083736 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/55749083736

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS