The Role of Regional Organizations in Disaster Risk Management

A Strategy for Global Resilience

S. Hollis

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349494231, 9781137439291
• eBook ISBN: 9781137439307
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Financial Risk Management
• Index: Social Sciences

The use of regional organizations to mitigate and respond to disasters has become a global trend. This book examines the role regional organizations play in managing disaster risk through a comparative study of ten regional organizations, demonstrating their current limitations and future potential.

1

The Role of Regional Organizations in Disaster Risk Management

On 6 November 2013, one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded struck the Philippine archipelago. The resulting damage was immense. Flying debris, flattened houses, damaged buildings and the loss of basic infrastructures caused copious deaths, displaced over 4 million people and affected roughly 14 million lives (UNOCHA, 2013). Blocked roads and a damaged airport only compounded the hardship felt by the survivors, many of whom were in need of basic necessities such as shelter, fresh water, food and medicine.

Three months later, a cyclone of similar strength passed through the Ha’apai group of Tongan islands. Intense winds and storm surges destroyed homes, damaged public buildings, schools and plantation crops, disrupted roads and ports, and impaired critical communication links. Logistical problems of sending relief aid were hampered by the loss of communication to affected islands and by limited transport infrastructure. It is estimated that recovering from the destruction will take a good number of years (IFRC, 2014; BBC, 2014).

These weather-related disasters clearly overwhelmed national capacities to effectively manage the disasters. In response, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) deployed an ASEAN-Emergency Rapid Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) to Manila and Tacloban City to coordinate with local authorities and assess possible relief support. In an expression of solidarity, ASEAN Secretary-General Lê Lu’o’ng Minh noted: ‘ASEAN stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Philippines in these difficult times and we are ready to show the ASEAN spirit of a caring community to affected population in the country’ (2013). Tonga did not receive a similar regional response. This is largely due to a general lack of capacity to facilitate responses to disasters by the two main regional organizations in the Pacific: the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC). However, the SPC has been active in supporting Tonga and other Pacific island countries to establish Joint National Action Plans on climate change adaptation and disaster risk management (UNISDR, 2013c).

These regional activities on Disaster Risk Management (DRM) represent a fairly new development that is not specific to Southeast Asia or the Pacific. The European Union, for example, has been increasingly active in supporting prevention and preparedness measures by conducting simulation exercises, courses and exchanges as well as facilitating responses to disasters through what is now called the European Commission’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERRC). Other examples of regional programmes on DRM include the Central American Integration System (SICA), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the Organization of American States (OAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).

Since the last quarter of the 20th century, over 30 regional programmes on DRM have emerged across the world, 18 of which were formed within a seven-year period from 2000 to 2006. Regional organizations appear set to provide increased resilience to their member states, a strategy encouraged by the global community of states, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations that advocate the importance of reducing disaster risk. This rise in international attention is clearly reflected in the high participation of states in world conferences on disaster reduction that have contributed to elevating DRM as a global priority (see UN, 1994b, 2000a; UNISDR, 2005). Despite this global activity and the emphasis placed on the important role of regional organizations, DRM has received relatively little attention from international relations scholars.¹ The development of these DRM programmes is a global phenomenon that may be changing the way in which disasters are perceived and how states respond to them.² This important policy space must be analyzed more succinctly and understood more thoroughly.

We currently know very little about regional DRM activities and how, or even if, they reduce the vulnerability of states and their citizens from natural hazards. What role do these and other regional organizations actually play in managing disaster risk and what do they aim to achieve? Does ASEAN-ERAT provide a value added beyond existing state capacities? Do regional organizations reflect an emerging global strategy for increasing the resilience of communities? Gaining a more fine-tuned and holistic understanding on the current functions and future possibilities of regional DRM can provide important insights for increasing the resilience of states from natural hazards. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of regional organizations and how they operate globally and locally is crucial for expanding our knowledge on, and capabilities for, the most effective means of mitigating and responding to transboundary disasters.

This book addresses these issues by examining why states have chosen to cooperate on DRM through regional organizations. Understanding what motivates states to cooperate on regional DRM provides us with important insights on the anticipated role of regional organizations.³ That is, what states aim to collectively achieve as reflected in regional framework agreements and strategies on risk management.

At first glance it would seem that states are motivated by a clear, rational-based logic. In a highly interdependent and globalized world, a major flood, volcanic eruption or earthquake can easily transgress political boundaries, disrupt important trade routes and damage tightly knit economies. The continual increase in the frequency of weather-related disasters – a phenomenon that is increasingly connected to the effects of climate change (Stern, 2006; Field et al., 2012) – only increases the urgency for forming collective insurance regimes against the disruptive forces produced by natural hazards. States presumably cooperate through regional organizations to produce a common public good to reduce the loss of social and economic capital (see Rhinard, Hollis and Boin, 2012). Indeed, many regional DRM agreements legitimize collective cooperation on this very basis (see ASEAN, 2005a; PIF, 2005; LAS, 2011) and often emphasize the general rise in economic damages incurred through disasters (OAS, 2005c; SADC, 2009; Georgieva, 2010a). These are standard, rational and logical motivations that provide important insights into why states would cooperate through regional organizations. The role of regional organizations is clear: it provides an additional layer of protection for the state. A role that is predominantly formed from functional demand in a set of geographically defined states.

Yet, this is only one side of the coin. Motivations to cooperate on regional DRM also come from dominant norms that are reified through global discourse (Meyer, 2010), deliberation (Boli and Thomas, 1999) or argumentation (Risse, 2000). A dense network of humanitarian and relief organizations, that have a particularly strong influence on developing states, advocates specific ‘recipes’ used to strengthen the resilience of states from natural hazards. This argument suggests a different role for regional organizations: they are used as legitimate conduits to transfer ideas from the global to the local level. A role that is predominantly formed from the global supply of DRM-related norms.

These two arguments are pursued and developed in this book. It begins with a rationally orientated approach (Chapter 3) based on neoliberal institutionalism. This approach emphasizes the usefulness of collective cooperation, citing the importance of interdependence, ‘regional pay-masters’, and financial flows in affecting cost-benefit calculations for improving the safety of individuals, states and regions. A concentrated study and comparison of ten regional organizations located across the globe reveals fractures in these rational arguments. There is no parsimonious explanation based solely on the logic of interdependence or transaction costs. Instead, a complex set of variables helps to partly explain the role of regional organizations as providers of a complementary layer of protection for the state. While limited, this explanation provides an important contribution that can be seen to work in parallel to an additional cultural argument.

The second line of thought based on world society theory claims that states have created regional capacities in DRM through the emulation of dominant norms that make up today’s global culture of protection (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). States are institutionalized through a global cultural system of images, myths and rituals. This, in turn, has produced endemic decoupling between official aspirations and operational practices. Appropriate behaviour trumps rational concerns. The empirical outcome of this exercise provides much support for the argument that there is a standardized world model on DRM that states have largely emulated, albeit, to differing degrees. This has certainly had the effect of increasing knowledge and awareness on disaster management, but it has arguably done little else in providing an additional layer of protection for vulnerable states. Indeed, it predicts that even when states agree to cooperate on DRM, in reality, little will be achieved. It is more important for states to conform to global standards on DRM rather than implement them. This means that it is crucial not only to analyze anticipated cooperation but also to examine what states have actually achieved.

Does the self-conceived role of regional organizations as disaster managers translate into practice? Chapter 7 provides a survey of what is actually happening on the ground which is compared against what states aim to achieve (Chapter 2). In line with the argument made by world society theory, the outcome of this comparison reveals significant gaps between expectations and capabilities for a majority of the examined regional organizations. The standing capacities of many regional organizations remain low. The ambitious goals of regional agreements on DRM often go far beyond the commitments of member states. Yet, the added value of protection that the rational approach anticipates remains promising even if not fulfilled. It is argued that regional organizations stand to play a vital role in today’s complex and interdependent environment where crises can easily cross over political borders or overwhelm the capacities of a single state. However, until states match their words with political will and financial backing, they run the risk of delegitimizing this new and vital role for regional organizations that they so emphatically endorse.

This book is a comparative study of ten regional organizations, which provides for a holistic view and general understanding of regional DRM. While there is now a healthy number of studies that compare regions (Haas and Schmitter, 1964; Etzioni, 1965; Nye, 1965; Dell, 1966; Schmitter, 1970; Fawcett and Hurrell, 1995; Katzenstein, 1996; Boås, Marchand and Shaw, 1999; Hettne, Inotai and Sunkel, 2000; Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000; Acharya and Johnston, 2007; De Lombaerde et al., 2010; Börzel, 2012b), few comparative studies have systematically compared particular policy spaces across more than two or three regional organizations. As most of these studies are interested in forming generalizations about regional processes and outcomes, it is surprising that the number of cases has been so low. Of course, careful case selection can reveal highly useful and important results. However, this means that complexity is commonly given precedence over generalizability. In order to contribute to this deficit, a total of ten organizations have been selected to produce reliable generalizations and to sketch out the ‘big picture’. This helps to reveal, for example, whether there is a common model that states adopt into their regional organizations, it provides an indication of what one can expect from regional organizations and it reveals whether regional diversity is important for resilience.⁴ The cases include ASEAN, PIF, Mercosur, CARICOM, the OAS, SADC, the AU, the EU, LAS, and ECO. These organizations are selected because they are different from each other in most regards except for their participation in DRM.⁵ The cases have also been purposefully chosen to provide variation from low-to-high levels of cooperation on DRM for the purpose of avoiding selection bias. Other scope conditions include regional organizations that are geographically diverse, are multi-dimensional and have existed for more than 20 years. The following section introduces the reader to regional DRM as a modern and global phenomenon.

Regional disaster risk management

The following defines and briefly discusses central terms used in this book. This is important for not only delineating the main subject of concern, but also providing important standards to measure and compare regional organizations as risk managers. Regional DRM is the process by which an association of states agrees to cooperate on reducing the vulnerability of its regional community from natural hazards. This often materializes through DRM programmes that include anything from an official statement on the awareness and need for regional solutions to regional problems, to legally binding documents designed to streamline national DRM efforts, establish regional centres for the facilitation of response to disasters and the pooling of resources. Mercosur, for example, has produced an agreement establishing a committee on DRM that caters for preparedness (Mercosur, 2009). On the other hand, ASEAN has established a legally binding document that includes preparedness, prevention and response to, and recovery from, disasters (ASEAN, 2005a). Table 1.1 lists these and 34 other regional organizations that cooperate on DRM. The dates in parentheses indicate when the regional organization signed an agreement or produced a particular programme on DRM.⁶ The table illustrates not only the global spread of regional DRM but also highlights the short time in which a majority of cooperation on DRM began. Indeed, the timing is somewhat peculiar. Note that the table is not exhaustive but designed to provide a reflection of the global rise of regional disaster risk management cooperation. The following section unpacks the laden term – Regional – Disaster – Risk – Management – in order to gain some clarity on this global activity.

Regional organizations are an association of states. They are ‘non-sovereign governance systems with (partial) statehood properties’ that intersect the national and global level (De Lombaerde et al., 2010: 740).⁷ These organizations are furthermore multi-dimensional (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000) and are usually united by at least one commonality, such as community (Deutsch et al., 1957), cultural homogeneity (Russet, 1967), territory (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000), mutual interdependence (Nye, 1965) and common ideas (Katzenstein, 1996).⁸ To be clear, regionalism – the general phenomenon of regional organizations or ‘ideology of regionalism’ (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000: 457) – is not the principle unit of analysis. It rather constructs the scope conditions around which DRM is analyzed. This study is more interested in regionalization: an empirical ‘process that leads to patterns of cooperation, integration, complementarity and convergence within a particular cross-national geographical space’ (Hettne and Söderbaum, 2000: 457–458).

A disaster is a negatively ‘perceived disruption’ from the normal functioning of society (Boin, 2005a: 163).⁹ This definition folds neatly into the standard UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) definition as a ‘serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources’ (UNISDR, 2009g). This more elaborate definition emphasizes the social dimension of a disaster that is inextricably tied to the natural. The corollary of this is that the naturalness of a disaster is a myth (Wisner et al., 2004). Thus a ‘natural disaster’ is understood as the combination of vulnerability and a natural hazard that produces a disruption to the functioning of a society. Natural hazards or natural triggers can come in the form of astronomical, geophysical, hydrological, meteorological, climatological, and biological events. These can include, for example, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, epidemics, insect infestations, drought, wildfire, floods, and (solar) storms. When a natural hazard disrupts a number of critical infrastructures (transfunctional crisis) and/or when its effects cross political boundaries (transgeographical crisis) it is classified as a transboundary disaster (Boin and Rhinard, 2008: 4).¹⁰ It is often when these transboundary disasters occur that a regional organization can provide an important role in facilitating response efforts. A good example of this is the EU’s responses to disasters. In 2012, the ERRC monitored or facilitated 37 requests for assistance from 25 countries, such as tropical Cyclone Sandy in the United States, forest fires in Portugal, floods in Nigeria and tropical Cyclone Evan in Fiji (ECHO, 2012). The very definition of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  The Role of Regional Organizations in Disaster Risk Management
• 2  Regional Disaster Risk Management
• 3  The Rational Role of Regional DRM Cooperation
• 4  The Standardization of DRM
• 5  International Organizations and Norm Diffusion
• 6  Norm Reproduction in the School of DRM
• 7  The Great Divide: Translating Expectations into Capabilities
• 8  A World of Regions
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index