Alka Sapat

Displacement and Disaster Recovery: Transnational Governance and Socio-legal Issues Following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake

The 2010 earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath have highlighted inherent but understudied transnational governance and socio-legal complexities of disaster recovery and displacement. The aftermath of the earthquake and issues related to recovery were experienced not only domestically within in Haiti, but also transnationally, particularly in the South Florida region. This region has been particularly important in the recovery process, as it is home to over 300,000 Haitians, it served as a receiving area for severely injured earthquake survivors and for school-aged displacees, and it is an area that is rich with Haitian-American organizations, including activists who have for decades been fighting causes of immigration equality for people of Haitian descent. The specific objectives of this paper are to examine and analyze the key transnational governance and socio-legal issues that have arisen in the South Florida region for four distinct groups: (i) displacees and their related legal, social, cultural, and economic issues; (ii) host communities and governance, legal, and monetary complexities associated with compensation payments (e.g., to hospitals for their services to earthquake survivors); (iii) immigrants within the United States and related legalization and citizenship issues; and (iv) diaspora communities and socio-legal issues related to dual citizenship and their ongoing struggles to have a louder voice in the future of Haiti. Our methodology and data sources include interviews with key members of the Haitian-American diaspora, school districts, city and county governments, non-profit organizations, relief task forces, and local government agencies. We also looked at relevant plans/ policies modified or adopted by governmental and non-governmental institutions in response to governance and socio-legal issues that have arisen as part of our analysis and when referred to by our interviewees. We find that social constructions of the different groups in our study, along with other social, political and economic factors, were important in understanding policy responses to the issues that emerged.

Environmental Injustice: An Emerging Public Policy Issue

ABSTRACT Environmental justice is a major issue today and of interest to citizens, administrators, and scholars of public administration. In this introduction, we review the emergence of the environmental justice movement and discuss the development of the field by presenting an overview of the literature and existent research on environmental justice. This research has focused to a large extent on siting issues and on the causes and explanations of environmental equity. In particular, five causes or explanations of environmental injustice have been emphasized in the literature: (a) race; (b) economic and market factors; (c) political and administrative issues; (d) attitudinal issues; and (e) post-materialism. We review the major pieces of research and evidence in these areas and compare and contrast the explanations of environmental injustice. for the most part we find that there is considerable controversy over the different explanations and causes of environmental injustice. In the third section of the paper, we highlight some of the issues that have not been explored so far and the unfulfilled gaps, in academic research on environmental justice issues. We conclude by presenting a brief synopsis of the articles in this symposium.

BLAMING THE VICTIM; THE ROLE OF DECISION-MAKERS IN THE OCCURRENCE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE

ABSTRACT Past research on environmental justice concerns has focused primarily on the siting of hazardous waste facilities. Less research has been done on other aspects of environmental policy in which concerns of racial or other injustices arise. This study shows that environmental injustice is not limited to the sitting of hazardous facilities or the occurrence of pollution, but occurs also at the policy formation and implementation stages in other areas such as solid waste management. To study this issue, this study focuses on the implementation of the Illinois Solid Waste Management Act of 1988, in two counties in north-eastern Illinois, Kankakee and Will. In neither of the two counties were minorities included in the planning process, and out of a total of 91 advisory committee members, minority interests were represented by only one black male. At the same time racial minorities made up about 15 percent of the total population in the two counties. The study shows that the main reason for this lack of representation is not a lack of environmental concern among blacks. Nor can it be explained by a lack of interest in participation in environmental decision-making among blacks. Rather, the study shows that the process is led by misconceptions among planners and decision-makers who generally believe that blacks are not interested in environmental issues and therefore not interested in participating in environmental decision-making. The conclusion of this study is that it is the belief held by local planners and decision-makers that there is a lack of interest in environmental issues among blacks, that produced a planning process in which the interest of minorities were not represented.

Transnationality and diaspora advocacy: lessons from disaster

ABSTRACT A number of catastrophic disasters in the last decade have raised questions about their transnational impacts and about the role of the diaspora. The 2010 Haiti earthquake, the focus of our study, provided a lens to further our understanding of evolving conceptualizations about transnationalism, transmigrants, and social capital. We hypothesize that sustained ‘intensive transnationalism’ by diaspora and linking forms of social capital between diaspora, other civil society organizations and advocacy groups, and government institutions are critical during post-disaster recovery in affected nation states and in countries to which survivors turn for refuge. We conducted 103 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a wide range of civil society actors in South Florida, Boston, New York, Atlanta, and Washington DC between June 2010 and June 2015. We found that linking forms of social capital were more important after the earthquake than in previous disasters. Overall, the longevity and variety of Haitian diaspora advocacy work, particularly in immigration, have resulted in broader social networks and alliances, work groups, task forces, interfaith coalitions, and support groups to address complex social and policy issues.

Population/Community Displacement

Population displacement, including protracted and chronic patterns of repeated displacement is a global phenomenon that is growing in scale, frequency and complexity. This chapter discusses root causes of displacement including pre- and post-disaster socioeconomic vulnerabilities, push-pull migration factors, and systemic political and governance fragilities. Also discussed are the implications of terminology used for displaced persons, and policy and planning solutions to address dilemmas that arise in both disaster-impacted and host communities and countries. A case study on Haiti is used to illustrate in more detail the transboundary impacts of the Haiti earthquake, the causes, consequences, and outcomes of displacement, and the responses by government, non-governmental, and diaspora organizations. Positive recovery trajectories of displaced persons in home and host communities will require sustained and coordinated policy initiatives by multiple actors and stakeholders, along with inclusive and participatory practices that involve displaced populations in decision-making.

Socioeconomic vulnerability and electric power restoration timelines in Florida: the case of Hurricane Irma

Large-scale damage to the power infrastructure from hurricanes and high-wind events can have devastating ripple effects on infrastructure, the broader economy, households, communities, and regions. Using Hurricane Irma’s impact on Florida as a case study, we examined: (1) differences in electric power outages and restoration rates between urban and rural counties; (2) the duration of electric power outages in counties exposed to tropical storm force winds versus hurricane Category 1 force winds; and (3) the relationship between the duration of power outage and socioeconomic vulnerability. We used power outage data for the period September 9, 2017–September 29, 2017. At the peak of the power outages following Hurricane Irma, over 36% of all accounts in Florida were without electricity. We found that the rural counties, predominantly served by rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities, experienced longer power outages and much slower and uneven restoration times. Results of three spatial lag models show that large percentages of customers served by rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities were a strong predictor of the duration of extended power outages. There was also a strong positive association across all three models between power outage duration and urban/rural county designation. Finally, there is positive spatial dependence between power outages and several social vulnerability indicators. Three socioeconomic variables found to be statistically significant highlight three different aspects of vulnerability to power outages: minority groups, population with sensory, physical and mental disability, and economic vulnerability expressed as unemployment rate. The findings from our study have broader planning and policy relevance beyond our case study area, and highlight the need for additional research to deepen our understanding of how power restoration after hurricanes contributes to and is impacted by the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of communities.

Integrating Qualitative Data Analysis Software into Doctoral Public Administration Education

Abstract The quality of doctoral research has long been debated in the field of public administration, along with discussions about the need for improved methodological preparation. What is lacking, however, are discussions in public administration pedagogy about conceptual understandings regarding the use of computer-aided qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS), pedagogical strategies, and student and faculty perspectives and experiences about the use of such software programs. This article attempts to fill this gap by focusing on ways in which CAQDAS can be integrated into doctoral public administration education, the possibilities and limitations of such software, and strategies that faculty and students can use in teaching and employing such software. We also draw on lessons learned from a collaborative research project that used a qualitative data analysis software program.