Thomas A. Birkland

Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting'

The policy literature often mentions the agenda-setting influence of focusing events, but few policy studies systematically examine the dynamics of these events. This article closes this gap by examining focusing events, group mobilization and agenda-setting. Using natural disasters and industrial accidents as examples, most focusing events change the dominant issues on the agenda in a policy domain, they can lead to interest group mobilization, and groups often actively seek to expand or contain issues after a focusing event. I explain how differences in the composition of policy communities and the nature of the events themselves influence group and agenda dynamics. The organization of policy communities is an important factor in agenda setting, but agenda setting and group politics vary considerably with the type of event and the nature of the policy community.

Media Framing and Policy Change After Columbine

The 1999 Columbine school shooting incident in Colorado gained far more media attention across a broader range of issues than any school violence episode before or since. One might expect that Columbine would have had an influence on public opinion, public policy, and scholarship commensurate with the attention it gained. We find that the event did contribute in a limited but interesting way to scholarship on media framing. But the effect of Columbine on public opinion and the nature and substance of public policy was limited. Attention to school shootings peaked with Columbine, and the attention surrounding that event mostly spurred more rapid implementation of existing policies and tools that were already available to schools. In this article, the authors review first the media and public opinion research generated by Columbine; they then review the public policy research referencing Columbine and evaluate the “lessons” scholars have drawn from that event.

Learning and Policy Improvement After Disaster: The Case of Aviation Security

This article considers whether policy makers in the aviation security field have learned from actual or apparent aviation security breaches in the late 1980s through 2001. The author finds that the loss of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 and of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 did lead to greater policy-making attention to a relatively narrow range of issues raised by these events. The author also finds that the September 11 terrorist attacks led to a comprehensive search for improved policy tools to prevent a recurrence of the attacks. The author argues that this post-September 11 search would not have been possible without the debates on aviation safety that accompanied the earlier events.

The impact of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on tourism in Thailand

The 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami appears to have reduced tourist visits to southern Thailand and particularly to the provinces of Phuket and Phang Nga. In Thailand, a much higher proportion of the tsunami victims were tourists than in other affected nations. Also, the tourism industry, which is a major source of foreign exchange, is very sensitive to the perception of risk created by disasters like this tsunami. Although revenues may remain depressed for some time, it is likely that tourism will rebound in this region because of the attractiveness of the physical amenity and the value it offers for European tourists. Damage to the physical infrastructure did not serve as a substantial impediment to response and recovery. Information and warning systems, together with buildings that afford vertical evacuation, will protect lives and reduce perceived risk.

The Social and Political Meaning of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

Abstract In this paper we argue that the Exxon Valdez oil spill gained so much attention because of its setting in Alaska. Alaska symbolizes for many Americans the wilderness or frontier that has long been part of American thought. At the same time, American national development has largely depended on the discovery and use of the nation’s abundant natural resources. The setting of the Valdez spill in the seemingly pristine waters of Prince William Sound brought the tension between our national identification with wilderness and our national need for further natural resource exploitation into sharp focus. In the aftermath of the spill, a legislative deadlock was passed and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was passed. The Valdez accident had longer-term consequences as well, most prominent of which is related to the ongoing debate over whether to open up the coastal plain in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to further development.

Business and Political Dimensions in Disaster Management

A considerable and growing body of crisis management literature seeks to help business managers address disasters. Notwithstanding, the business literature on crisis management fails fully to understand the policy and political aspects of business disasters, and concentrates on prescriptive, managerial issues that show disregard and sometimes disdain for plural democracy. We illustrate our argument with a review of the existing crisis management literature, and three case studies: the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Jack in the Box E. Coli outbreak, and the crash of Valujet flight 592. We find that the primary gap in the crisis management literature is its failure to understand the motivations of countervailing interest groups and the facts that mobilize them to take action. We argue that the lessons derived from these cases are equally applicable to North American, European and Asian business crises.

Socio-Technological Systems Integration to Support Tsunami Warning and Evacuation

On December 26, 2004, countries in the Indian Ocean basin were struck by a tsunami generated by a large magnitude earthquake just south of the western tip of Sumatra. Observations made during a post-tsunami visit to coastal Thailand suggest that the value of the proposed emergency warning system (EWS) for the Indian Ocean would be greatly enhanced if it was augmented by an on-shore cyber-based warning and evacuation system. Such a system would greatly increase safety with minimal disruption to the normal activities involved in tourism and other coastal industries. An integrated, cyber-based system to inform and assist the tsunami detection, warning, and evacuation process would, in essence, expand time and shorten distances. This paper describes the elements of such a cyber-infrastructure system, how system triggers could be calibrated using decision principles from judgment theory, and how the system could be tested through simulations employing agent-based models

Factors inhibiting a national hurricane policy

This article contrasts relatively disjointed federal policy dealing with the hurricane hazard with more coordinated federal policy dealing with earthquakes. A comparison between the two hazards is appropriate because of important similarities. However, significant differences between these disasters make the creation of national policy dealing with the hurricane hazard more difficult. These differences include distinctive features of the hurricane hazard and, in particular, features of the policy community that works on the hurricane hazard. Differences between the earthquake and hurricane policy communities reveal the factors that inhibit policymaking. Prospects for a more comprehensive national policy to deal with the hurricane hazard are assessed.

Focusing Events in Disasters and Development

This chapter considers how disasters serve as an important element of the agenda setting process in developing countries. These “focusing events” highlight policy failure, and provide opportunities for change and policy learning. However, underlying the definition of focusing events relies upon an assumption of democratic institutions, such as the role of interest groups, the ability to criticize government officials, and the free and open pluralistic debate that can occur following a disaster. Therefore, this chapter studies the role of disasters in developing nondemocratic countries to see if the principles of focusing events apply to policy change and resilience the way they do in developed democratic countries. We rely on case studies of earthquakes in Nicaragua, China, and Haiti.

Introduction: Risk, Disaster, and Policy in the 21st Century

The latter half of the 20th century has posed a number of paradoxes for developed societies. Increased economic and physical well-being have created expectations of long, healthy, productive lives free of great risk to lives or property. The public—or at least the public as interpreted by elected officials—has consistently demanded that government take steps to mitigate or respond to hazards ranging from the catastrophic, such as terrorism, to the mainly inconvenient, such as snowstorms or nuisance flooding. Paradoxically, most public attention is paid to postdisaster actions; demands are placed on government to effectively respond to or clean up after these events (O’Brien, 1991). Demand for proactive steps to mitigate hazards is quite low, and politicians pay little attention to it (Rossi, Wright, & Weber-Burdin, 1982) even as professionals in disaster-related fields press for change without widespread public support (May, 1990). Yet the annual economic toll from natural disasters continues to mount, with little apparent political cost to decision makers who could take some actions to reduce the toll done by natural disasters (Burby, 1998; O’Brien, 1991). This situation becomes somewhat less puzzling when we consider the divergent trends in disaster fatalities and property damage in the latter half of the 20th century. The sheer number of people in developed nations (we focus primarily on the United States) killed or injured in natural hazards has substantially decreased, a result of improved building practices, better warning systems, improved search and rescue capacities, and better emergency medical care. At the same time, the rate of development in hazardous areas has accelerated, thereby exposing more property to hazard; these hazards are often willingly accepted by those who value the very things about the site—ocean access, fertile land, or sweeping views—that make the site both very desirable and hazardous. Thus, people are more willing to voluntarily assume known risks than they are to assume risks that are not obvious to the property owner (Morgan, 1993). This raises the question of whether and to what extent individuals should assume more responsibility for protecting themselves and their property from hazards. This is particularly troublesome when individuals’ and communities’ risk