The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters

The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters PDF

Author: Eric C. Jones

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2009-05-16

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0759113114

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Throughout history, societies have had to decide whom to 'sacrifice' and whom to help in times of disaster. This volume examines how elite groups attempt to maintain power through the use of particular economic, political, and ideological instruments and how both ruling elites and common people endeavor to create meaningful traditions while enduring hardship.The Political Economy of Hazards and Disasters demonstrates how vulnerability is economically constructed, primary producers adapt their production regimes, how traders and merchants adapt their practices, and how political economic objectives play out in recovery efforts.

Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society

Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society PDF

Author: Andrew E. Collins

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-11-21

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0123964741

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Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society provides analyses of environmentally related catastrophes within society in historical, political and economic contexts. Personal and corporate culture mediates how people may become more vulnerable or resilient to hazard exposure. Societies that strengthen themselves, or are strengthened, mitigate decline and resultant further exposure to what are largely human induced risks of environmental, social and economic degradation. This book outlines why it is important to explore in more depth the relationships between environmental hazards, risk and disasters in society. It presents challenges presented by mainstream and non-mainstream approaches to the human side of disaster studies. By hazard categories this book includes critical processes and outcomes that significantly disrupt human wellbeing over brief or long time-frames. Whilst hazards, risks and disasters impact society, individuals, groups, institutions and organisations offset the effects by becoming strong, healthy, resilient, caring and creative. Innovations can arise from social organisation in times of crisis. This volume includes much of use to practitioners and policy makers needing to address both prevention and response activities. Notably, as people better engage prevalent hazards and risks they exercise a process that has become known as disaster risk reduction (DRR). In a context of climatic risks this is also indicative of climate change adaptation (CCA). Ultimately it represents the quest for development of sustainable environmental and societal futures. Throughout the book cases studies are derived from the world of hazards risks and disasters in society. Includes sections on prevention of and response to hazards, risks and disasters Provides case studies of prominent societal challenges of hazards, risks and disasters Innovative approaches to dealing with disaster drawing from multiple disciplines and sectors

Governing Disasters

Governing Disasters PDF

Author: S. Revet

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2015-11-08

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 9781349493203

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Based on extensive ethnographic and historical research conducted in diverse field locations, this volume offers an acute analysis of how actors at local, national, and international levels govern disasters; it examines the political issues at stake that often go unaddressed and demonstrates that victims of disaster do not remain passive.

The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters

The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters PDF

Author: Debarati Guha-Sapir

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-05-02

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 0199339805

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Since the turn of the millennium, more than one million people have been killed and 2.3 billion others have been directly affected by natural disasters around the world. In cases like the 2010 Haiti earthquake or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, these disasters have time and time again wrecked large populations and national infrastructures. While recognizing that improved rescue, evacuation, and disease control are crucial to reducing the effects of natural disasters, in the final analysis, poverty remains the main risk factor determining the long-term impact of natural hazards. Furthermore, natural disasters have themselves a tremendous impact on the poorest of the poor, who are often ill-prepared to deal with natural hazards and for whom a hurricane, an earthquake, or a drought can mean a permanent submersion in poverty. The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters focuses on these concerns for poverty and vulnerability. Written by a collection of esteemed scholars in disaster management and sustainable development, the report provides an overview of the general trends in natural disasters and their effects by focusing on a critical analysis of different methodologies used to assess the economic impact of natural disasters. Economic Impacts presents six national case studies (Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Nicaragua, Japan and the Netherlands) and shows how household surveys and country-level macroeconomic data can analyze and quantify the economic impact of disasters. The researchers within Economic Impacts have created path-breaking work and have opened new avenues for thinking and debate to push forward the frontiers of knowledge on economics of natural disasters.

Government Responses to Crisis

Government Responses to Crisis PDF

Author: Stefanie Haeffele

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-03-25

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 3030393097

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When crises occur, citizens, media and policymakers alike expect government to respond and to take a leading role in recovery. Given the scale and scope of crises, whether natural (such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes), manmade (such as conflict and economic downturns), or often a combination of the two, governments are often seen as being in the best position to identify the problems, understand the circumstances, and direct action. They are also likely to be the entities that have adequate resources to devote to such large-scale efforts. Yet, governments are not spared from the effects of crises. They are composed of individuals who are impacted by disasters and face many of the same challenges in identifying needs, prioritizing action, and adjusting to changing circumstances. It is by no surprise that governments are also often scrutinized during and after crises. How, then, do we understand the capability of and proper role for governments to respond to crisis and to drive recovery? This edited volume—comprised of chapters by accomplished scholars and seasoned practitioners in disaster and crises studies and management, spanning multiple disciplines including sociology, economics, and public administration—examines the roles, expectations, and capabilities of government responses to crises. It gives an overview of the literature, provides lessons learned from both research and experience on the ground during crises, and puts forth a framework for understanding crisis management and subsequent policy implications. It will be of use to any scholars, students, practitioners or policymakers interested in learning from and better preparing for crises and responding when they do occur.

The Social Roots of Risk

The Social Roots of Risk PDF

Author: Kathleen Tierney

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2014-07-23

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 0804791406

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“This book about risk and disaster—and how they get amplified—is fascinating and hugely important as we face an ever-more-turbulent world.” —Rebecca Solnit, award-winning author of A Field Guide to Getting Lost The first decade of the twenty-first century saw a remarkable number of large-scale disasters. Earthquakes in Haiti and Sumatra underscored the serious economic consequences that catastrophic events can have on developing countries, while 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina showed that first world nations remain vulnerable. The Social Roots of Risk argues against the widespread notion that cataclysmic occurrences are singular events, driven by forces beyond our control. Instead, Kathleen Tierney contends that disasters of all types—be they natural, technological, or economic—are rooted in common social and institutional sources. Put another way, risks and disasters are produced by the social order itself—by governing bodies, organizations, and groups that push for economic growth, oppose risk-reducing regulation, and escape responsibility for tremendous losses when they occur. Considering a wide range of historical and looming events—from a potential mega-earthquake in Tokyo that would cause devastation far greater than what we saw in 2011, to BP’s accident history prior to the 2010 blowout—Tierney illustrates trends in our behavior, connecting what seem like one-off events to illuminate historical patterns. Like risk, human resilience also emerges from the social order, and this book makes a powerful case that we already have a significant capacity to reduce the losses that disasters produce. A provocative rethinking of the way that we approach and remedy disasters, The Social Roots of Risk leaves readers with a better understanding of how our own actions make us vulnerable to the next big crisis—and what we can do to prevent it. “Brilliant . . . Drawing on a trove of timely case studies, Tierney analyses how factors such as speculative finance and rampant development allow natural and economic blips to tip more easily into catastrophe.” —Nature

The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound

The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound PDF

Author: Emily Chamlee-Wright

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1849806543

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In 2005 Hurricane Katrina posed an unprecedented set of challenges to formal and informal systems of disaster response and recovery. Informed by the Virginia School of Political Economy, the contributors to this volume critically examine the public policy environment that led to both successes and failures in the post-Katrina disaster response and long-term recovery. Building from this perspective, this volume lends critical insight into the nature of the social coordination problems disasters present, the potential for public policy to play a positive role, and the inherent limitations policymakers face in overcoming the myriad challenges that are a product of catastrophic disaster. Soon after Hurricane Katrina wreaked its havoc, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University launched the Gulf Coast Recovery Project. The project assembled a team of researchers to examine the capacity within political, economic, and civic life to foster robust response and recovery. Building on both quantitative and qualitative analysis, the contributors to this volume seek to understand the recovery process from the ground up from the perspective of first-responders, residents, business-owners, non-profit directors, musicians, teachers, and school administrators, and how ordinary citizens respond to the formal and informal rules of the post-disaster policy context. Personal, political and poignant, The Political Economy of Hurricane Katrina and Community Rebound will appeal to economists interested in the political economy of disaster and disaster recovery, disaster specialists, and general readers interested in the challenges those affected by Hurricane Katrina have faced, and are facing, and their prospects for recovering from the 2005 disaster.

Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards

Vulnerability and Resilience to Natural Hazards PDF

Author: Sven Fuchs

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-03-22

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 1107154898

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A comprehensive overview of the concepts of vulnerability and resilience for natural hazards research for both physical and social scientists.

The Economics of Natural and Unnatural Disasters

The Economics of Natural and Unnatural Disasters PDF

Author: William S. Kern

Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 0880993634

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Only recently have economists understood natural and unnatural disasters as economic phenomena to be formally analyzed. Given the magnitude of many recent disasters, their impact on local, regional, and national economies, and the coverage of their consequences in the popular press, it is puzzling that the attention of economists was for so long largely diverted from analysis of these events. This book presents a noted group of contributors who stand at the forefront of this increasingly important subdiscipline of economics the economics of disasters. The chapters they contribute cover a wide variety of events and delve into the human and economic impacts disasters impose on nations around the world. Several themes dominant in this literature are discussed. These include the ability of potential disaster victims to accurately assess the risks they face, the role of incentives in ensuring that mitigation efforts are undertaken, the adequacy of our evaluation of the impact of disasters on economies, and discussion of the effectiveness of current government policies toward disaster prevention and relief. These will in all likelihood continue to be topics of discussion in the future as well.