Cooperative Activities as Building Blocks:

Toward an Interconnected, Interdependent System of Emergency Management

Clayton Wukich, PhDAssistant Professor

Department of Political ScienceSam Houston State University

Huntsville, TXwukich@gmail.com

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Four Phases of Disaster Management

• Good heuristic for both academics & practitioners

• However, disasters = complex

• In practice, emergency managers do not strictly follow a list of sequential steps to achieve intended goals

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Neal’s Critique

1. Different phases may occur simultaneously

2. What happens (or does not happen) during one period (e.g., amount of mitigation or preparation) directly effects what happens (or does not happen) during another period (e.g., response, recovery)

• Theoretically and conceptually, disaster researchers and practitioners should change their thinking about disaster phases and recognize their interconnectiveness

Neal 1997, p. 154

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An Interdependent Model of Emergency Management

Structure of an Action Situation

• Set of participants• Positions to be filled by participants• Potential outcomes• Set of allowable actions and function

that maps actions into realized outcomes

Ostrom 2005, p. 32

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Multiplexity• The existence of multiple relationships

between agencies (Isset and Provan 2005)

–Agencies cooperate on a number of projects and activities• One interaction may lead to another • Interaction may create stronger, more robust

relationships

• Aggregate of all interactions = polycentric system of governance

Social Network Analysis

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Social Network• A structure composed of a set of actors,

some of whose members are connected by a set of one or more relations (Knoke and Yang 2008, p. 8)

–Actor• Discrete individual, corporate, or collective

social units (Wasserman and Faust 1994, p. 17)

–Relational tie• Linkage, relationship between a pair of actors

(Wasserman and Faust 1994, p. 18)

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Network Models

Star Network

Circle Network

Circle Network

Hanneman & Riddle 2005

Data & Methods

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Field Study Area• Regional emergency management system– Multiple sectors, levels of government– Diverse organizational missions and capabilities

• Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania– System (and organizational) heterogeneity • Number of agencies• Fiscal capacity• Experience and training• Exposure to risk and the ability to reduce risk

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Data Collection and Measurement• Semi-Structured Interviews w/ Domain Experts Data– 63 semi-structured interviews – Stratified sample– Interviews transcribed– Open, axial, and selective coding

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1 & 2-Mode Network Maps• Created both 1-mode and 2-mode maps– 1-mode data – records ties between one set of entities – 2-mode data – records ties between two sets (Borgatti 2009)

• Agencies• Actions

• Conducted network analysis, using the software:– UCINET (Borgatti, Everett and Freeman 2002)

– ORA (Carley 2011)

• By identifying central actors, cut points, and siloed (or disconnected) agencies, I demonstrate how the system integrates or fails to do so

At the level of the cooperative activity

Actions at the system level

Findings

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An Interconnected, Interdependent Model of Emergency Management

• Cooperative activities– Risk assessment– Mitigation and incident

prevention– Preparedness– Response– Recovery– Evaluation and

corrective action– Administration

• Interaction between agencies create – Systems based on single-

activities– Multiple-Activity Systems

• When one joint activity leads to another…

– An overall emergency management system

• Cooperative activities as building blocks for polycentric systems of governance

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Map Legend

= Action

= Agency

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Police link fire and EMS networks in this model

Risk Assessment Activities

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+ Risk Assessment

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Mitigation & Incident Prevention• Lack of interlocal cooperation– Interactions generally occur between agencies

operating in the same municipality – Or between local municipalities and agencies from

higher levels of government• As a discipline, police participate in joint incident

prevention projects more frequently (63.6 percent) than the other two disciplines; fire (31.8 percent) and EMS (10.0 percent)– Law enforcement activities such as DUI checkpoints;

joint trailer and heavy equipment inspection; and other crime prevention programs account for the difference in cooperation

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+ Mitigation & Incident Prevention

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Run CardPrioritized list of preferred

mutual aid partners for 911 dispatch

Planning Activities

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Large-scale training exercises link agencies:

Mass casualty, mass decontamination, mall

shooting

Training Activities

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+ Preparedness

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Participation in response to structural fires, suspect apprehension, and traffic

accidents help to integrate the system

Routine Response Activities

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County EOC as hub for information and

resources

Large-scale Response Activities

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+ Response Activities

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Again, EOC critical for communication, coordination, and

control

Recovery Activities

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+ Recovery Activities

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An Interdependent Model of Emergency Management

Questions