Hakkyong Kim

Learning from UK disaster exercises: policy implications for effective emergency preparedness

With a view towards suggesting improvements to the official UK Guidance for disaster exercises, this paper critically examines a representative sample of recent disaster management exercises in the United Kingdom to determine how they are planned, conducted and assessed. Personal observations and in-depth qualitative interviews were used to study three representative multi-agency disaster exercises in the UK: (1) the Hitachi 395 Evacuation Workshop and Exercise Twin Bore, (2) Exercise Saxon Shore and (3) Exercise Operation Safe Return. The research demonstrates that disaster exercises in the UK generally consist of four main approaches: (1) disaster response and adaptability, (2) building-block approach, (3) citizen participation and (4) discussion-based debriefs. While the data demonstrates that each of these approaches has significant merit, it also elucidates key improvements that should be made to the official UK guidance and reflected in future exercises. In particular, the research suggests that the Guidance should highlight the importance of adaptability at the scene of a disaster, advance a building-block methodology to organising exercises and reiterate the need for better debriefings of volunteer participants.

Threats, Persuasion and Sanctions as an Aid to Tackling Corruption

Bribery and corruption is not a modern phenomenon; it does, however, appear to have increased in the modern era. This increase is perhaps due to the growth in international trade, economic development throughout the world and the reliance of western nations on products and raw materials from the developing world. It is also much easier for those tempted or planning an act(s) of corruption due to the increased availability of modern communication and travel systems, which ‘assist’ those who conduct and engage in international legal or illegal acts.

Is All Corruption Bad? Understanding Individual and Organisational Vested Self-Interest

The explanations for the causes and occurrence of corruption are found in the interaction of individual and social structures. The causes of corruption have been examined from a variety of perspectives; from a perspective of public choice, where the individual is portrayed as a rational calculated person who chooses corruption when the advantages of such an act outweigh its expected disadvantages (Rose-Ackerman, 1978; Klitgaard, 1988; Graaf, 2007) and the idea of the ‘bad apple’, where the cause of corruption is within a ‘defective’ individual (Punch, 2000). In much of the fraud and corruption literature, then, individualist explanations seek to discover the underlying characteristics and motivations of the offenders. However, an alternative approach is to stress how similar rather than different people are who commit fraud and corruption (Coleman, 1999). Rather than review all literature here, however, we focus on key theoretical explanations as to why people commit fraud and corruption, and in particular the ‘grease the wheels’ and ‘sand in the wheels’ explanations of the pitfalls and benefits of corruption.

State Capture, Corruption and the Use of Force

In the past few decades we have seen a proliferation of work on the nature and causes of state crime (Chambliss, 1989; Barak, 1993; Ross, 1995; 2000; Friedrichs, 1998; Kauzlarich and Kramer, 1998; Green and Ward, 2000, 2004; Green, 2005; Kramer and Michalowski, 2005; Collins et al., 2011). These articles and books, however, primarily focus on state crime rather than state capture. There is brief mention of state capture in some of the literature, particularly in reference to crimes of commission committed by sovereign states, but the focus is primarily on a state’s treatment of its own internal population and the control it wields and uses on its own, or in conjunction with vested private interests, conscientiously or unconscientiously as an elected governing body. The focus of state crime is thus on the commission and omission of acts that criminalise those under its own national laws and geographical control.

International Compliance: The Limitations to Legislation

Bribery and corruption have existed in one form or another for many hundreds of years and legislation to counter these acts was, and is, still extremely limited. The sector that first received state attention, however, was the problem of corrupt and ‘fixed’ elections in the British (London) Parliament. To ensure ‘fair and honest’ elections, a law was passed in 1695, making it illegal to offer or to accept bribes for election to the then London Parliament. Three important features of this law still resonate with succeeding attempts to counter corruption: (1) the wide definition used, which listed a covering, giving or promising of ‘any money, meat, drink, present, reward or entertainment’. Contemporary national and international laws have kept to such a wide definition; (2) the sanction available; preventing the convicted from specific acts (refusing permission to sit in the London Parliament) and thus regulation rather than law enforcement, which is a constant feature of successive anti-corruption laws and (3) few resources available to deal with corruption, this is also a constant feature of contemporary enforcement.

Private Organisations as an Extension of Government Power

As Klare (2008: 177) noted, human civilisations have long fought one another for both access and control over valuable minerals, substances and materials. These ‘disputes’ can define an age, such as those over access to water, oil, land for homes, and agricultural development; the most sought-after resource, however, is oil. Fundamentally, oil is an essential resource for almost every aspect of modern life (Coll, 2012). Industrial nations such as America, the UK, Japan and China depend on oil for economic prosperity and have close links and have worked with the oil industry in conflict zones to maintain access and ensure supply of much-needed sources. The following chapter will therefore primarily examine how industrialised nations engage in state crime and state capture in search of oil. Drawing on two examples — Iraq and Africa — we highlight how the state and private sector interest combine and secure much-needed resources. These oil resources, however, are often in vulnerable locations — geographically and politically — and the long-term financial investment needed to extract oil from the earth is substantial (Coll, 2012). This investment is in need of protection; this leads us on to private military contractors and the ‘services’ they offer, ranging from ‘security’, technical assistance and intelligence for western states and incumbent dictators.