Italy, Japan, And The United States Effects Of Centralization On Disaster Responses 1964-1969
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Date
1977
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Disaster Research Center
Abstract
Description
Three natural disasters are studied in each of three countries
Italy, Japan, and the United States, in this effort to understand
the effect of societal context on the manner in which natural disaster
response functions are performed. The study of these nations
is approached from an institutional/structural perspective in which
demographic, economic, political, communication, family, and religious
variables are examined as they affect the warning, emergency preparedness,
evacuation, inventory, victim care, security, welfare, and emergency
restoration of services functions of disaster response. The
general nature of the study is exploratory, and, while some attention
is given to all the institutional/structural variables listed, there
is particular emphasis placed on the degree of political centralization
as an independent variable. In terms of the relationships
between institutional/structural variables and the performance of
disaster functions, the following questions were asked: How were
the functions carried out? Where did the functions take place,
i.e., the geographical location of the activity? Who were the individuals, groups, and organizations involved in the activities?
What difficulties were encountered? The following questions about
the impact of political centralization on disaster response, guided
the research: At what levels of government are key decisions made?
Does the level of decision making vary according to normal times
versus disaster periods and/or the area, subject and content of
matters being decided, and/or policy decisions versus operational decisions? Is there a different pattern of decision making in
disaster response functions in a decentralized nation as contrasted
to a centralized nation?
Keywords
Italy, Japan, Centralization, Disaster Responses, United States, Natural Disasters