Informal Disaster Governance

Patrizia Isabelle Duda,Ilan Kelman,Navonel Glick

doi:10.17645/pag.v8i4.3077

Patrizia Isabelle Duda, Ilan Kelman + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v8i4.3077

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Abstract

<p>Scholars and practitioners are increasingly questioning formal disaster governance (FDG) approaches as being too rigid, slow, and command-and-control driven. Too often, local realities and non-formal influences are sidelined or ignored to the extent that disaster governance can be harmed through the efforts to impose formal and/or political structures. A contrasting narrative emphasises so-called bottom-up, local, and/or participatory approaches which this article proposes to encapsulate as Informal Disaster Governance (IDG). This article theorises IDG and situates it within the long-standing albeit limited literature on the topic, paying particular attention to the literature’s failure to properly define informal disaster risk reduction and response efforts, to conceptualise their far-reaching extent and consequences, and to consider their ‘dark sides.’ By presenting IDG as a framework, this article restores the conceptual importance and balance of IDG vis-à-vis FDG, paving the way for a better understanding of the ‘complete’ picture of disaster governance. This framework is then considered in a location where IDG might be expected to be more powerful or obvious, namely in a smaller, more isolated, and tightly knit community, characteristics which are stereotypically used to describe island locations. Thus, Svalbard in the Arctic has been chosen as a case study, including its handling of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, to explore the merits and challenges with shifting the politics of disaster governance towards IDG.</p>

Highlights

Over the past century, societies have devised vast formal disaster governance (FDG) mechanisms
In the absence of FDG, including when climate change continues to be separated from disaster risk reduction and response (DRR/R) by authors such as Grove (2014), successful Disaster risk reduction (DRR)/R often depends on informal actors and networks
This raises doubts as to whether scholars dealing with informal DRR/R have truly detached from these traditional dichotomies, especially when their analyses often lead to the question of how to improve FDG by ‘managing’ these efforts, so that these will not hinder formal efforts—whereas the logical consideration should perhaps be how to capitalise on informality as an asset, and how FDG could ‘serve’ capable communities in disasters rather than manage their efforts (Ogie & Pradhan, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Societies have devised vast formal disaster governance (FDG) mechanisms. Informal actors are derogatorily seen as little more than ‘volunteers.’ Where informal DRR/R is seen as a viable alternative, this is often limited to functional characteristics such as ability to respond faster and more flexibly than FDG actors This raises doubts as to whether scholars dealing with informal DRR/R have truly detached from these traditional dichotomies, especially when their analyses often lead to the question of how to improve FDG by ‘managing’ these efforts, so that these will not hinder formal efforts—whereas the logical consideration should perhaps be how to capitalise on informality as an asset, and how FDG could ‘serve’ capable communities in disasters rather than manage their efforts (Ogie & Pradhan, 2019). We conclude by suggesting the concept of ‘informal disaster governance’ (IDG) as a broader framework to comprehensively encompass informality in DRR/R

Defining Disaster-Related Governance

Defining Informality

Svalbard Norway as an IDG Case Study

Conclusion