Cooperative Activities as Building Blocks: Toward an Interconnected, Interdependent System of Emergency Management Clayton Wukich, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Political Science Sam Houston State University Huntsville, TX

Four Phases of Disaster Management Good heuristic for both academics & practitioners However, disasters = complex In practice, emergency managers do not strictly follow a list of sequential steps to achieve intended goals 2

Neal’s Critique 1.Different phases may occur simultaneously 2.What happens (or does not happen) during one period (e.g., amount of mitigation or preparation) directly effects what happens (or does not happen) during another period (e.g., response, recovery) Theoretically and conceptually, disaster researchers and practitioners should change their thinking about disaster phases and recognize their interconnectiveness 3 Neal 1997, p. 154

An Interdependent Model of Emergency Management 4

Structure of an Action Situation Set of participants Positions to be filled by participants Potential outcomes Set of allowable actions and function that maps actions into realized outcomes Ostrom 2005, p. 32

Multiplexity The existence of multiple relationships between agencies (Isset and Provan 2005) – Agencies cooperate on a number of projects and activities One interaction may lead to another Interaction may create stronger, more robust relationships Aggregate of all interactions = polycentric system of governance 6

Social Network Analysis

Social Network A structure composed of a set of actors, some of whose members are connected by a set of one or more relations (Knoke and Yang 2008, p. 8) – Actor Discrete individual, corporate, or collective social units (Wasserman and Faust 1994, p. 17) – Relational tie Linkage, relationship between a pair of actors (Wasserman and Faust 1994, p. 18) 8

Network Models 9 Star Network Circle Network Hanneman & Riddle 2005

Data & Methods

Field Study Area Regional emergency management system – Multiple sectors, levels of government – Diverse organizational missions and capabilities Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania – System (and organizational) heterogeneity Number of agencies Fiscal capacity Experience and training Exposure to risk and the ability to reduce risk 11

Data Collection and Measurement Semi-Structured Interviews w/ Domain Experts Data – 63 semi-structured interviews – Stratified sample – Interviews transcribed – Open, axial, and selective coding 12

1 & 2-Mode Network Maps Created both 1-mode and 2-mode maps – 1-mode data – records ties between one set of entities – 2-mode data – records ties between two sets (Borgatti 2009) Agencies Actions Conducted network analysis, using the software: – UCINET (Borgatti, Everett and Freeman 2002) – ORA (Carley 2011) By identifying central actors, cut points, and siloed (or disconnected) agencies, I demonstrate how the system integrates or fails to do so 13 At the level of the cooperative activity Actions at the system level

Findings

An Interconnected, Interdependent Model of Emergency Management Cooperative activities – Risk assessment – Mitigation and incident prevention – Preparedness – Response – Recovery – Evaluation and corrective action – Administration Interaction between agencies create – Systems based on single- activities – Multiple-Activity Systems When one joint activity leads to another… – An overall emergency management system Cooperative activities as building blocks for polycentric systems of governance 15

Map Legend 16 = Action = Agency

Police link fire and EMS networks in this model Risk Assessment Activities 17

+ Risk Assessment 18

Mitigation & Incident Prevention Lack of interlocal cooperation – Interactions generally occur between agencies operating in the same municipality – Or between local municipalities and agencies from higher levels of government As a discipline, police participate in joint incident prevention projects more frequently (63.6 percent) than the other two disciplines; fire (31.8 percent) and EMS (10.0 percent) – Law enforcement activities such as DUI checkpoints; joint trailer and heavy equipment inspection; and other crime prevention programs account for the difference in cooperation 19

+ Mitigation & Incident Prevention 20

Run Card Prioritized list of preferred mutual aid partners for 911 dispatch Planning Activities 21

Large-scale training exercises link agencies : Mass casualty, mass decontamination, mall shooting Training Activities 22

+ Preparedness 23

Participation in response to structural fires, suspect apprehension, and traffic accidents help to integrate the system Routine Response Activities 24

County EOC as hub for information and resources Large-scale Response Activities 25

+ Response Activities 26

Again, EOC critical for communication, coordination, and control Recovery Activities 27

+ Recovery Activities 28

An Interdependent Model of Emergency Management 29

Questions