De desastres, políticas y públicos

Abstract

It is proposed that the form public response takes in front to public disasters will depend on three critical factors: the paradigmatic approach from which the category of disaster is built (natural sciences, engineering and architectural sciences or social sciences), the hierarchical and centra- lized degree in which public policies operate and, crucially, of a postconventional understanding about the place those being affected (‘publics’) occupy throughout the disaster cycle. If public reconstruction efforts play the paradox observed in conventional models of public policy: public policies without citizens, then the effectiveness and validity of the public response to disasters requires take a distance from both, hierarchical and centralizing logics, as well as from pre or conventional logics about the participation of those affected. local development is intended as a possible and fruitful expression of involving citizens as co-constructors of the public offer to face public disaster.