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Challenges to Decentralization of Disaster Management in Turkey: The Role of Political-Administrative Context
Swedish Defence University, Department of Security, Strategy and Leadership (ISSL), CRISMART (National Center for Crisis Management Research and Training). Statsvetenskapliga institutionen, Uppsala universitet.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3604-801X
2018 (English)In: International Journal of Public Administration, ISSN 0190-0692, E-ISSN 1532-4265, Vol. 42, no 5, p. 417-431Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Global disaster policy frameworks promote decentralization as a prerequisite of good disaster governance. Using 44 interviews, this study contributes to the literature that focuses on disasters and decentralization by investigating three systemic mechanisms that seemingly challenge decentralization of disaster management in Turkey: introduction of oversight systems, resource-allocation failure, and central–local collaboration. The results indicate that these mechanisms are enabled by a combination of political-administrative system characteristics and disaster-induced processes. To better understand how to secure the benefits of decentralization, we should engage with a wide range of disaster management actor perspectives, and integrate research on political-administrative systems and collaborative governance.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2018. Vol. 42, no 5, p. 417-431
Keywords [en]
Decentralization, decentralizing reforms, disaster management, political-administrative system, collaboration, Turkey
National Category
Public Administration Studies
Research subject
Statsvetenskap med inriktning mot krishantering och internationell samverkan
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-6703DOI: 10.1080/01900692.2018.1466898OAI: oai:DiVA.org:fhs-6703DiVA, id: diva2:1096422
Available from: 2017-03-29 Created: 2017-05-17 Last updated: 2020-01-23Bibliographically approved
In thesis
1. Centralized Disaster Management Collaboration in Turkey
Open this publication in new window or tab >>Centralized Disaster Management Collaboration in Turkey
2017 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

Following unprecedented earthquakes in 1999, highly centralized Turkey initiated reforms that aimed to improve disaster management collaboration and to empower local authorities. In 2011, two earthquakes hit the country anew affecting the city of Van and town of Erciş in Turkey’s southeast.

In attempts to reduce disaster risk, global disaster risk reduction frameworks and disaster scholars and practitioners advocate collaborative and decentralized disaster management strategies. This thesis investigates how such strategies are received in a centralized and hierarchical national political-administrative system that largely is the anti-thesis of the prescribed solutions. More specifically, this research investigates the barriers and prerequisites for disaster management collaboration between both public and civil society actors in Turkey (during preparedness, response, and recovery) as well as how Turkey’s political-administrative system affects disaster management collaboration and its outcomes. The challenges to decentralization of disaster management are also investigated.

Based on forty-four interviews with actors ranging from national to village level and NGOs, the findings suggest that the political-administrative system can alter the relative importance, validity, and applicability of previously established enabling or constraining conditions for collaboration. This may in turn challenge previous theoretical assumptions regarding collaboration.

By adopting a mode of collaboration that fit the wider political-administrative system, collaborative disaster management progress was achieved in Turkey’s national level activities. Although there were exceptions, collaboration spanning sectors and/or administrative levels were generally less forthcoming, partly due to the disjoint character of the political-administrative system. Political divergence between local and central actors made central-local collaboration difficult but these barriers were partly trumped by other prerequisites enabling collaboration like interdependence and pre-existing relations. The findings suggest that the specific attributes of disasters may both help and hinder disaster management collaboration. Such collaboration generally improved disaster response. The findings also indicate that the decentralization attempts may have been premature as the conditions for ensuring a functional decentralization of disaster management are presently lacking. Decentralization attempts are commonly suggested to increase local capacity and local participation but the findings of this dissertation suggest that in Turkey, these commodities may currently have better chances of being increased by refraining from decentralization.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, 2017. p. 90
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Social Sciences ; 141
Keywords
collaboration, disaster management, collaborative disaster management, cross-sector collaboration, trust, power balance, legitimacy, integration, local knowledge, local actors, civil society, interdependence, pre-existing relations, political affiliation, natural disaster, disaster response, damage assessment, aid distribution, search and rescue, decentralization, central-local collaboration, political-administrative system, Turkey, Van, Erciş
National Category
Public Administration Studies
Research subject
Statsvetenskap med inriktning mot krishantering och internationell samverkan
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:fhs:diva-6702 (URN)9789155498696 (ISBN)
Public defence
2017-06-08, Brusewitzsalen, Östra Ågatan 19, Uppsala, 13:00 (Swedish)
Opponent
Supervisors
Available from: 2017-05-17 Created: 2017-05-17 Last updated: 2020-02-10Bibliographically approved

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Hermansson, Helena

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