Contingency planning for crisis management: Recipe for success or political fantasy?
Författare
Summary, in English
Contingency planning is widely considered to be an essential role of public authorities. Anticipation of what may happen, coupled with the prior allocation of resources, personnel, equipment, crisis control rooms, tasks, responsibilities and decision guidance/rules, is assumed to maximise the chances of a successful response in the event of a crisis. However, this paper proposes that the relationship between crisis planning and crisis management outcomes is more complex and nuanced relationship the often assumed. Contingency planning which is successful in the pre-crisis stage, does not guarantee a successful crisis response. Correspondingly, contingency planning failures in the pre-crisis stage, do not automatically lead to a flawed crisis response. The reasons rest primarily with the multiple influences on crisis responses – only some of which can be anticipated and planned for. The conclusion provides policy-oriented and analytical reflections which recognise the value of contingency planning, while suggesting that we should not inflate our expectation of contingency planners or rush too quickly to vilify them for a lack of adequate preparations.
Publiceringsår
2011
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
89-99
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Policy & Society: Journal of Public, Foreign and Global Policy
Volym
30
Issue
2
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- Other Civil Engineering
- Building Technologies
- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary
Status
Published
Projekt
- FRIVA
Forskningsgrupp
- LUCRAM (Lund University Center for Risk Analysis and Management
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 1449-4035