Alan Jarman

Inter‐organizational policy processes in disaster management

Discusses the efficiency of disaster management policies and programmes in Australia. Argues that there are long‐standing deficiencies in strategic and operational planning and forecasting approaches. Urges more co‐operation and co‐ordination between the various emergency services. Discusses the development of terrestrial and space technologies which could be used in disaster management.

Disaster management as contingent meta-policy analysis: Water resource planning

Abstract Australia, an island continent the size of the U.S., often experiences floods, cyclones, droughts, earthquakes, and man-made disasters. As a federal system of government, there are many instances of institutional conflict involving water resource-related crisis management situations. This paper outlines a contingency-based policy making schema which seeks to define, and solve heuristically, various forms of conflict usually involving all three spheres of government (federal, state, and local). The contingency model is uniquely applied to the context of disaster management and so allows “meta-policy” strategies to be developed by governmental decision makers. In addition, the design of possible disaster management “expert systems” is only now being recognized in Australia but constitutes an emerging element of global policy advice and planning capabilities.

‘Reliability’ Reconsidered: A Critique of the HRO‐NAT Debate

The concept of reliability is beginning to take on new meaning as Information Technology becomes pervasive in both the private and public sectors. This topic deserves further attention as new mobile Internet systems proliferate. This research note is concerned with developing a more operational understanding of the concept of ‘reliability’. The HRO-NAT Debate is raising many related issues in this regard. However, the article goes further and seeks to provide a multi-level contingent schema for this purpose.

Decision pathways from crisis

Crisis simulation is by definition an exercise in cognitive structuring. It is argued that this automatically entails a search for heuristics and organizational decisions which might render complex, highly interactive social and technological situations comprehensible, hopefully amenable to being programmed and, ultimately, controlled. In this paper, a cognitive analysis is presented of alternative paths available to an organization that is in a crisis state to move away from crisis back to more routine modes of operation. Cognitive mapping of plausible post-crisis decision-paths results in a multi-path scheme that enables one to comprehend, even assess, the erratic development of political and socio-technological events in a post-crisis period. The specific example that is used to illustrate the applicability of such a multi-path scheme concerns the revival of NASA following the Space Shuttle disaster. In contrasting the cognitive opportunities in post-crisis situations with the cognitive failures implicit in pre-crisis settings, the multi-path simulation technique enables a more sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of crisis development.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT: TO WARD A NEW INFORMATIONAL “LOCALISIM” IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM

The imperative of “think global, act local” takes on a pressing urgency in any strategic discussion of reforming local government functions and capabilities. A crisis management “literacy” would indicate a more comprehensive reform and re-design agenda for local government than is currently being recognized. This paper identifies a crisis management literacy appropriate for broadening and enhancing local government capabilities within a globalizing context. It identifies major reforms undertaken recently in Australian local government and, clearly, reinforces an awareness of the inadequacy of managerialist and economistic reforms undertaken from the perspective of managerial and governance capacities required to respond to identifiable vulnerabilities and predictable “creeping crises” manifest within local government communities. A new globally-informed “localism” is urgently required within on-going debates about the extent, and adequacy, of the reform agenda in Australia.