Chaos organization and disaster management / Alan Kirschenbaum.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Pt. I: The official organizing of chaos -- 1. Creating disasters -- 2. Preparing for the worst -- 3. Are disaster agencies effective? -- Pt. II: The other side - victims perspective -- 4. The power of tradition -- 5. The odds of being a victim -- 6. The mother hen effect -- Pt. III: Alternative organizational forms -- 7. Disaster communities as survival mechanisms -- 8. Privatizing disaster management.

This book offers a scholarly survey of disaster response behaviour and management in the face of natural and manmade catastrophe. The author provides a methodological and empirical platform from which to initiate a critical analysis of disaster management. Sparked by a unique field study of the Israeli experience during the Gulf War, this book demonstrates the massive divide between individual responses to disaster and the actual functioning of disaster management organizations. It exposes the fundamental flaws of disaster management agencies, analysing disasters from the perspectives of both agencies and potential victims. Formulating an alternative approach to disaster management that draws upon the advantages of privatization, this volume appraises methods of measuring disaster agency effectiveness, emphasizing the citizen vantage point and stakeholder evaluations. It outlines the intrinsic bureaucratic constraints that impede the efficacy of government agencies, and reveals the disconnect between organizational and victim perceptions of disaster. By highlighting a new empirically based understanding of disaster behaviour, the book recommends moving the focus of disaster management to a social process model.