Structural Change in China’s Emergency Management: Theoretical Generalizations

Abstract

From the perspective of systems thinking, China’s emergency management structure can be analyzed in terms of five dimensions: social change, governance transformation, government framework, policy system and operational mechanisms. On the basis of comparative analysis, we discuss structural change across these dimensions by targeting our research on major disasters in the decade from SARS in 2003 to the Lushan earthquake in 2013. Overall, consolidation and evolution coexist in China’s emergency management structure. At present, structural consolidation has the upper hand, but there are also forces driving structural evolution. Using inductive logic and the comparative method, we arrive at a theoretical generalization about the structural consolidation of China’s emergency management, demonstrating its “comet-shaped” structure and “comet-tail” effect. On this basis, we put forward our theoretical propositions. We believe that the underlying reason for the developmental predicament facing emergency management in China today is that it goes ahead on its own, divorced from structure. Its further development must go back to structure and change with the times, with a view to promoting the structural evolution of China’s emergency management.