Topic: Emergency Management in Public Administration

Thread: Emergency management is playing an increasingly important role in public administration. Whether caused by severe weather, terrorism, or civil unrest, public administrators face the challenge of anticipating and effectively addressing problems that are, by their very nature, unexpected. After you read Exercise 9, conduct your own research into major emergency management incidents that occurred in the United States during the last 50 years. Select one that you consider to have been relatively well-managed, and one that was not well-managed. Applying concepts from Exercise 9 and your own research, explain how the emergency management incidents you selected were well-managed and poorly managed. What did the public sector officials do right? What could they have done better?

For each forum, you are required to post 1 thread of 400–500 words and 2 replies of 250–300 words. For each thread, you must support your assertions with at least 2 citations in current APA format. Each reply must incorporate at least 1 citation in current APA format. Acceptable sources include scholarly articles, public administration trade publications, statistical research, the textbook, and the Bible.

Responding to a classmate’s thread requires both the addition of new ideas and analysis. A particular point made by the classmate must be addressed and built upon by your analysis in order to move the conversation forward. Thus, the reply is a rigorous assignment that requires you to build upon the thread to develop deeper and more thorough discussion of the ideas introduced. As such, replies that merely affirm, restate or unprofessionally quarrel with the previous thread(s) and fail to make a valuable, substantive contribution to the discussion will receive appropriate point deductions.

Louise K. Comfort is professor of

public and international affairs and director

of the Center for Disaster Management

at the University of Pittsburgh. She is a

fellow of the National Academy of Public

Administration and the author or coauthor

of fi ve books, including Designing

Resilience: Preparedness for Extreme

Events (University of Pittsburgh Press,

2010). She has published articles on

information policy, organizational learning,

and sociotechnical systems and serves as

book review editor for the Journal of

Comparative Policy Analysis.

E-mail: comfort@gspia.pitt.edu

William L. Waugh, Jr., is professor

of public management and policy in the

Andrew Young School at Georgia State

University and adjunct professor in the

Executive Master’s Program in Emergency

and Crisis Management at the University

of Nevada Las Vegas. He is editor-in-

chief of the Journal of Emergency

Management; principal investigator at

the Center for Natural Disasters, Coastal

Infrastructure, and Emergency Management

at the University of North Carolina, Chapel

Hill; and commissioner for the Emergency

Management Accreditation Program, which

sets standards for and accredits state and

local emergency management programs.

E-mail: wwaugh@gsu.edu

Beverly A. Cigler is professor in the

School of Public Affairs at Penn State

Harrisburg and a fellow of the National

Academy of Public Administration. She

specializes in intermunicipal and state–local

relations, service delivery, public fi nance,

and emergency management. Her publica-

tions include 165 articles and chapters and

several coauthored or coedited books. She

has presented 215 invited speeches and

testimony to national and state public offi –

cials’ organizations; received national, state,

and university awards for research and

public service; and advises several research

and public service organizations.

E-mail: cigler@psu.edu

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration 539

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 72, Iss. 4, pp. 539–548. © 2012 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.111/j.1540-6210.2012.02549.x.

Louise K. Comfort
University of Pittsburgh

William L. Waugh, Jr.
Georgia State University

Beverly A. Cigler
Penn State Harrisburg

In 1984, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA)
and the National Association
of Schools of Public Aff airs and
Administration (NASPAA)
collaborated to foster a community
of scholars focused on research and
professional practice in emergency
management. Th e intent was to
build a community of researchers
and professional practitioners who would support
improved performance for an increasingly challenging set
of problems confronting emergency managers at all levels
of jurisdiction. Th e fi nancial investment was small, but
the NASPAA/FEMA initiative led to the evolution of a
community of scholars engaged in emergency management
research and professional practice. Th e authors review
changes in FEMA since the 1984 workshop and the
impact of the NASPAA/FEMA fellows on research and
practice in emergency management, placing this initiative
in the wider context of

public administration.

Over the past three decades, research and prac-tice in emergency management has under-gone signifi cant change, spurred in part by
increases in the number, size, and scope of disasters,
both in the United States and globally. Th e change
has been facilitated by the intermittent eff orts of
agencies and research institutions to foster improved
knowledge so as to guide practice in sudden, urgent
events. Change has been augmented by advances in
information technology and telecommunications that
have enabled the rapid transmission of information,
images, and communication that were not easily avail-
able before 1979. Continued losses in lives and prop-
erty over these three decades underscore the primary
responsibility of public agencies in making emergency
management a central issue in public administration.

In the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, three distinct periods
of emergence, evolution, and expansion to increase
maturity in research and practice in emergency man-
agement made a substantive contribution to public

administration. It is instructive
to examine the conditions and
dynamics that characterized
the development of emergency
management as a recognized
subdiscipline within public
administration.

Emergence
In 1983, the Federal Emergency

Management Agency (FEMA) and the National
Association of Schools of Public Aff airs and
Administration (NASPAA) recognized the need for a
greater focus on scholarship and professional practice
in emergency management. Th e two organizations
entered into an agreement to cultivate interest in
emergency management among public administration
scholars. Th e goals were to develop a strong disaster
research community and to foster a heightened stand-
ard of professional practice among public administra-
tors in managing emergencies. Th ere already was a
solid core of researchers focused on emergencies and
disasters in other areas of the social sciences, particu-
larly sociology.

The FEMA Connection
In 1984, FEMA was fi ve years old, the product of
a reorganization that had begun during the Jimmy
Carter administration. Th e burning issues of the
day were organizational and political. FEMA was
described as an administrative “backwater” and largely
ignored by Congress and senior administration offi –
cials. Th e agency was described in less fl attering terms
as the decade wore on, but initially, it suff ered from
benign neglect in terms of funding levels and offi cial
attention. As happens with agencies created through
reorganizations, FEMA had a large number of politi-
cal appointees, few of whom were experienced in
emergency management. It also had problems defi n-
ing its own mission. FEMA offi cials were still clarify-
ing their responsibilities for earthquake and hurricane
preparedness and exploring new roles in nuclear
plant security and terrorism. By 1985, FEMA was

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public
Administration: Emergence, Evolution, Expansion,

and Future Directions

It is instructive to examine the
conditions and dynamics that
characterized the development
of emergency management as a
recognized subdiscipline within

public administration.

540 Public Administration Review • July | August 2012

security briefi ng by representatives of the Emergency Mobilization
Preparedness Board and National Security Council in the Old
Executive Offi ce Building.

Over a two-week period, the fellows were introduced to the fi eld of
emergency management by FEMA offi cials and emergency man-
agement scholars, including William J. Petak, Joanne Nigg, Allen
Settle, Robert Behn, Al Mushkatel, Peter May, and Th omas Drabek.
A fi eld trip to the Th ree Mile Island nuclear facility demonstrated
the need for rigorous scholarship and professional education in
the fi eld. Th e fellows also provided reviews of the PAR special issue
prior to publication, as well as work products submitted to FEMA,
which were described as “above and beyond the ‘call of duty’” by
FEMA offi cials (FEMA 1985). Richard Sylves agreed to edit a
newsletter for the new community as a means to maintain contact
and communication among the participants. In 1986, Professors
Sylves and Petak, with full support from the fellows, proposed a sec-
tion on emergency management to the leadership of the American
Society for Public Administration (ASPA), which subsequently was
approved.

ASPA’s Section on Emergency Management became the forum
for communication among the new research community. Panels
were organized for ASPA’s 1985 national conference and have been
part of every ASPA conference since. Th e section merged with the
Section on National Security and Defense Policy in the 1990s,
becoming the Section on Emergency and Crisis Management. Th is
group continued the eff ort to improve practice in emergency man-
agement through timely research on continuing issues of urban risk
(Sylves and Waugh 1990), self-organization in disaster environments
(Comfort 1994), and local policies and practice in environmental
risk (Burby, Cigler et al. 1991). Th e last-named book’s coauthors
include Raymond J. Burby, the lead author and an instructor in
the 1984 workshop, and Beverly Cigler and Jack Kartez, both
NASPAA/FEMA fellows.

Subsequent workshops never materialized, but by the end of the
1980s, this small group of young public administration scholars was
clearly establishing a record of research and professional engage-
ment in the fi eld of emergency management, although its impact
on practice was less observable. Meanwhile, events in the United
States and elsewhere continued to draw attention to the escalating
need for improved emergency management. Th e 1979 accident
at the Th ree Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania had
seriously undercut the nuclear power industry. Th e 1984 chemical
accident in Bhopal, India, and the 1986 nuclear accident at the
Chernobyl nuclear power plant outside Kiev in the former Soviet
Union underscored the global impact of technological hazards.
Both events heightened awareness of technological hazards in the
United States and led to the passage of Title III of the Superfund
Amendments and Reauthorization Act, the Emergency Preparedness
and Community Right-to-Know Act.

A series of major disasters triggered by natural hazards kept the
national and international spotlight on emergency response and
recovery. Th ese events included the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City
and the 1988 earthquake in Armenia. Both events were captured on
international television networks and created a heightened aware-
ness of risk in the hazards research community. Th ese international

immersed in political turmoil and criminal investigations, which
interfered with the eff ort to fi nd coherence among its constituent
programs. Confl icts with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over
the security of nuclear facilities and with the Departments of Justice
and Defense over responsibility for dealing with the threat of ter-
rorism further alienated support. Th e agency continued to struggle
during the second half of the decade with leadership problems,
confl icting concepts of mission, and weak performance in response
to highly publicized events, namely Hurricane Hugo and the Loma
Prieta earthquake in 1989. Clearly, change was needed.

The NASPAA/FEMA Agreement
To counter the politicized context of performance in emergency
management led by FEMA, which was widely perceived as dys-
functional, a series of activities was developed in the early to mid-
1980s to educate public administration scholars about emergency
management and to encourage their involvement. In 1983, on the
recommendation of the International City/County Management
Association, representatives from public administration academic
programs and the staff of FEMA’s National Emergency Training
Center organized a professional development program for young
scholars in public administration. A component of the NASPAA/
FEMA agreement included organizing a special issue on emergency
management for the Public Administration Review (PAR), with
Professor William J. Petak (1985) as editor. He had done extensive
work on earthquake mitigation programs and was recruited to help
organize and manage the workshop.

The Class of ’84
Th e fi ve-year goal of the NASPAA/FEMA program was to create a
community of scholars “teaching and doing research in emergency
management and interacting with each other synergistically so that
the whole of their eff ort exceeds the sum of its parts” (FEMA 1985).
Th e program agenda included eff orts to “[d]evelop programs and
actions designed to advance the educational development mission;
take steps to promote, enhance, and build the research base for the
fi eld; and initiate programs to help build the human resource base
necessary to meet the group’s objectives” (FEMA 1985).

Nominations for participants in the program were solicited from
NASPAA member universities. Approximately 85 nominations were
received, and 34 fellows were selected (FEMA 1985). Nominee
qualifi cations and prior research in the fi eld, the commitment of
their institutions to developing emergency management programs,
and geographic distribution were major factors in the selection
process. Th e fi nalists included faculty from political science, public
administration, criminal justice, urban and regional planning, and
civil engineering.

Th e initial workshop was coordinated by Dr. Charles Bonser,
dean of the School of Public and Environmental Aff airs at Indiana
University, and included urban management and public admin-
istration scholars, FEMA offi cials, and staff from the Triton
Corporation, which administered the program. Th e workshop
was held at the Senior Executive Policy Center at the National
Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland, from
May 20 to June 2, 1984. Th e introduction to FEMA began in
Washington, D.C., with a welcome by then–FEMA director Louis
O. Giuff rida, an orientation at FEMA headquarters, and a national

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration 541

all of the 1984 fellows focused their research on emergency manage-
ment or related issues after 1984. However, a number of fellows
created a visible and growing presence within public administration.
Contributions from public administration faculty to the disaster
policy and emergency management literature benefi ted FEMA
and the broader profession of emergency management, improving
its practice nationally and internationally. Although FEMA did
not continue its original plan for annual workshops, the agency
initiated a Higher Education Project in 1994 under the leadership
of Dr. Wayne Blanchard (2009) that sponsored the development
of curricula in emergency management as well as annual confer-
ences of faculty engaged in professional education in emergency
management. Research centers, academic degree and certifi cate
programs, and professional training programs were created, many by
the 1984 fellows.

In the mid-1990s, the National Science Foundation initiated a pro-
gram titled “Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards Researchers”
to attract young researchers to hazards research. Th e fi rst cohort
group was selected in 1996 and coordinated by Peter May, an
instructor in the 1984 workshop, together with researchers from
other disciplinary fi elds. Young researchers nurtured by this program
entered the fi eld in the late 1990s and created a broader focus on
research in emergency management from the disciplines of urban
planning, sociology, geography, and public policy and management.
A second cohort group was selected and mentored in 2002–4.

Emergency management was still an uncommon area of interest
well into the 1990s, when catastrophic disasters drew public atten-

tion. Th e growth of “billion-dollar” disasters
notwithstanding, emergency management
was still viewed as somewhat esoteric by some
public administration faculty and university

administrators.

Emergency management
research did not appear frequently in the
major public administration journals. Instead,
it appeared in more specialized journals, not
commonly read by public administration or
public policy faculty. Th is pattern illustrated
the continuing need to “mainstream” disaster

policy and emergency management research into the broader litera-
ture of public administration.

Expansion
Th e 1984 workshop participants and the evolving research com-
munity in public administration focused greater attention on the
response phase in emergency management, as opposed to prepared-
ness, mitigation, and recovery. Th is growing research community
expanded, particularly after the 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina,
to include researchers focused on the implications of disasters and
emergency management operations for subareas of the discipline.
For example, researchers explored issues of intergovernmental
relations, organizational theory, and information processes and
technology in the design and management of emergency operations.
Th e nexus between emergency management and homeland security
became a focal point for a growing number of researchers.

Th e 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina mesmerized the
nation and highlighted gaps in public policy and management that

events were followed by the near-simultaneous occurrence of
Hurricane Hugo that struck the Carolinas on September 18, 1989,
and the Loma Prieta earthquake that rocked northern California
on October 17, 1989. Occurring on opposite coasts of the United
States, these events stretched FEMA nearly to the breaking point
and demonstrated the need for improved emergency management
policy and practice at all jurisdictional levels.

Evolution
Th e relentless impact of natural hazards on unprepared communities
led to escalating costs and consequences of disasters at all juris-
dictional levels in the United States. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew
devastated much of south Dade County, Florida, and became the
costliest disaster to that date, with an estimated $34 billion in losses.
FEMA again was excoriated for poor performance. During FEMA’s
reauthorization hearings in 1992, Congress debated disassembling
the agency and returning its constituent parts to the agencies from
whence they had come. In 1993, following a series of missteps by
FEMA in practice and an infl uential critique of FEMA’s perform-
ance by the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA
1993), the Bill Clinton administration named an experienced
emergency manager, James Lee Witt, as director of the agency. Th e
cumulative cost of extreme events on local, state, and federal public
services, estimated at $50 billion per week for the United States
alone,1 required a diff erent approach to policy and practice.

Changes in emergency management evolved in a more consistent
way during the 1990s than in the 1980s. Witt proceeded to rebuild
the credibility of the agency by reorganizing it around the func-
tions of mitigation, preparedness, response,
and recovery—the four phases that had been
identifi ed as FEMA’s basic strategy in 1985
(McLoughlin 1985), but had not been eff ec-
tively implemented (see National Governors
Association 1981a, 1981b). Witt mobilized
eff ective response operations in the 1993
Malibu, California, fi res, the 1993 Mississippi
fl oods, and the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Fresh emphasis was placed on each commu-
nity’s need to build its capacity to reduce risk
before a damaging event happened, as well as to mobilize an inter-
organizational, interjurisdictional response system rapidly after the
event. Th e Witt years are referred to as the “golden age” of FEMA.

Th e series of disasters in the late 1980s and early 1990s attracted
new scholars to the study of emergency management in public
policy and administration. In some cases, scholars had personally
experienced disaster and were drawn to the fi eld to understand
and explain the conditions that led to damaging consequences for
communities exposed to risk (Schneider 1995). Th e small grants
program for quick response research for social scientists, initiated in
1985 and funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) but
administered through the Natural Hazards Center at the University
of Colorado Boulder, enabled researchers to respond quickly to
disasters through fi eld observation.

Th roughout the 1990s, an active and productive community of
public administration scholars evolved in hazards research, expand-
ing its links to the rest of the social science research community. Not

Th e growth of “billion-dollar”
disasters notwithstanding,

emergency management was
still viewed as somewhat eso-
teric by some public adminis-
tration faculty and university

administrators.

542 Public Administration Review • July | August 2012

researchers new to the fi eld did not locate much of the existing
emergency management literature. Some of the newer literature suf-
fers from a lack of attention to the pioneering work of early hazards
researchers.

Th e role of research centers focusing on disas-
ter has signifi cantly strengthened the interest
and attention given to emergency manage-
ment in cross-

disciplinary studies.

Sociologists
Quarantelli, Dynes, and Haas founded the
Disaster Research Center at the Ohio State
University in 1964 and moved it to the
University of Delaware in 1985. In its 40-plus
years of existence, the Disaster Research
Center has produced a new generation of

disaster sociologists and provided interdisciplinary linkages among
American and international disaster scholars. Similarly, the Natural
Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder, founded
in 1974, provides a consistent focus for interdisciplinary research.
Hazards Center directors from Gilbert White to Dennis Mileti and
now Kathleen Tierney have been staunch advocates for eff ective
risk-reduction policies and supporters of research that promises to
contribute to that goal. Th is context is vital in understanding the
public administration literature on hazards and disasters, as these
two centers have been instrumental in bringing public administra-
tion and planning scholars into the hazards research community.

Th e research centers funded by the DHS are now focusing atten-
tion on issues related to natural and technological hazards, as well
as terrorism. For example, the DHS Center of Excellence at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Center for Natural
Disasters, Coastal Infrastructure, and Emergency Management,
brings together scholars from planning, public administration,
sociology, psychology, economics, engineering, and other disciplines
and encourages collaborative eff orts to study coastal hazards, social
vulnerability, community resilience, long-term recovery, and emer-
gency management practice.

Results in Retrospect
In 2009, FEMA turned 30 years old. Since 2003, it has been a part
of the DHS and was the focus of a great deal of controversy in the
reorganization that created the department. Th e burning issues of
the day are still organizational and political, but also technical. Th e
reorganization that created the DHS, like the reorganization that
created FEMA 24 years earlier, remains a political fl ashpoint. Many
within the emergency management practitioner community are still
angry about the subordination of FEMA to the DHS and about
the internal reorganizations that at least partially disassembled the
agency and damaged its capabilities to deal with major disasters such
as Hurricane Katrina (Waugh 2007). For a time, the Preparedness
Directorate was a separate unit within the DHS, disengaged from
FEMA’s training and response components. Morale was very low,
and experienced FEMA managers retired or transferred to more
hospitable agencies. For example, the roster of agency personnel fell
from its allocated level of 2,800 employees in early 2000 to a low
of 2,000 employees in late August 2007. Problems exposed by the
poor response to Hurricane Katrina prompted Congress to pass the
Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act to restore at least
some of the authority and resources lost under the DHS (Cigler

characterized the existing political, organizational, and socioeco-
nomic conditions. Research funding from the NSF and the Natural
Hazards Center attracted an infl ux of applicants who focused on
the management and policy failures during these two events and on
the high priority for redesigning public policy and practice for the
nation in more reliable and responsible ways.

Following the 9/11 attacks, a profound
administrative shift in managing extreme
events occurred with the establishment of
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) on March 1, 2003. FEMA, formerly
an independent agency, was integrated with
21 other agencies into one large, heterogene-
ous department. Stripped of its autonomy
and searching for a viable strategy in an organizational environment
that was oriented primarily toward security from terrorist threats,
FEMA struggled to maintain a mission for professional performance
in emergency management. Th e very size, scope, and scale of the
organizational shift involved in the creation of the DHS attracted
researchers interested in intergovernmental relations, federal–
state relations, and interagency collaboration. Th e DHS reached
out to the research community and proposed a set of Centers of
Excellence—consortia of universities, public agencies, and, in
some cases, private companies—to explore key issues in protect-
ing the nation from terrorist threats. Seven Centers of Excellence
were established across the nation, attracting both new and estab-
lished scholars to a developing fi eld of security studies. Th e Public
Administration Review published a special issue on the fi rst anni-
versary of the 9/11 attacks (Terry and Stivers 2002). Contributing
authors included key fi gures in mainstream public administration
research, as well as three fellows from the initial 1984 seminar.

Th e focus of emergency management research shifted massively
again on August 29, 2005, with the occurrence of Hurricane
Katrina. Th e administrative failures in response and recovery opera-
tions in New Orleans revealed the lack of systematic mitigation and
preparedness—the very objectives that had been central to FEMA’s
practice in the 1990s. Again, the classic issues of recognition of risk
as the event was developing, communication, coordination, and
control in a severely damaged physical environment elicited the
attention, interest, and engagement of researchers.

Funding from the NSF and DHS after both the 9/11 and Hurricane
Katrina disasters created a key incentive for new scholars in public
policy and administration. Th e availability of research funding
provided a source of support for venturing into the interdisciplinary
fi eld of emergency management, winning recognition from univer-
sity departments that previously were reluctant to see young faculty
stray outside their academic disciplines.

Prominent sociologists, including Th omas Drabek and Joanne Nigg,
were instrumental in introducing the 1984 workshop participants
to previous decades of social science research on disasters and
collective behavior during emergencies. Much of that early social
science research was generated by Henry Quarantelli, Russell Dynes,
Dennis Wenger, William Anderson, Robert Stallings, and their
colleagues and students in sociology. When emergency manage-
ment became a focus of academic interest after the 9/11 attacks,

Th e role of research centers
focusing on disaster has signifi –
cantly strengthened the interest

and attention given to emer-
gency management in cross-

disciplinary studies.

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration 543

University of Pittsburgh. Th e summary of research activities rep-
resents only one type of contribution to emergency management.
Other valued contributions, summarized in table 1, enriched the
organizational culture and knowledge base of practicing emergency
managers. Fellows have given nearly 500 interviews regarding disas-
ter events and are frequently cited in the national and international
media, including major national newspapers and news magazines
in the United States, such as the New York Times and Washington
Post. Th ey have appeared on national television news networks and
been interviewed on national and international radio networks. In
short, fellows are frequently called on to explain disaster response
and recovery operations, mitigation, and the fundamental issues of
administration and policy in such events.

Members of the 1984 cohort became active in such organizations
as ASPA’s Katrina Task Force, the National Academy of Public
Administration’s panel studies on emergency management and
homeland security, and the Certifi ed Emergency Manager and
Emergency Management Accreditation Program commissions.
Others are involved with communications issues during emergen-
cies, including the Partnership for Public Warning assessment of the
Homeland Security Advisory System and the WGBH (PBS, Boston)
National Center for Access to the Media project on public warnings
for the disabled community. Fellows participated in national eff orts
such as the Multihazard Mitigation Council, National Hurricane
Conference, National Research Council, and National Academy
of Sciences Disasters Roundtable, as well as the annual workshops
organized by the Natural Hazards Center. Fellows also participate
in organizing symposia for Th e Public Manager that encourage
younger scholars, including graduates of the NSF’s Next Generation
Program. Some fellows are active in their local communities, serving
in advisory capacities to cities and counties, writing, assisting
with the development of local emergency management plans, and
helping plan and design local government responses to emergency
events.

In the years since the 1984 workshop, the NASPAA/FEMA fel-
lows have created a continuing research community focused on
emergency management issues. Th ey have had a marked impact
on national and state policy and practice in the emergency man-
agement profession. Key events have shaped the evolution of this
community, but a consistent and steady focus on the integration
of emergency management into public administration research
can be traced to the NASPAA/FEMA collaboration. Th e fi nancial
investment by FEMA was relatively small, but the payoff has been
signifi cant and continues to this day.

Th e obvious question is whether the fellows would have been drawn
to emergency management as a fi eld of study had they not partici-
pated in the 1984 workshop. A two-week exposure to the study and
practice of emergency management was only an introduction. While
there is no defi nitive answer, those with related research focuses may
well have been attracted to the fi eld by the catastrophic disasters of
the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s anyway. How important was the work-
shop? Th is question was asked of the fellows, and most stated that
they would not have been drawn to emergency management save
for the workshop. A few already had research agendas that included
emergency management, but most did not. Why did the planned
workshops subsequent to 1985 not occur? Again, there is no

2009). Th e appointment of Craig Fugate, director of Florida’s emer-
gency management division, as FEMA administrator in 2009 was a
positive sign that the Barack Obama administration was taking the
agency’s mission seriously while committing itself to keeping FEMA
within the DHS.

Has FEMA’s original intent in 1984 to create a research community
to inform decision making in the diffi cult, uncertain issues of
emergency management been achieved? Was the initiation of this
program through the 1984 NASPAA/FEMA workshop and the con-
tinuing collaboration with NASPAA a viable strategy to build such
a community, or would a recognizable group of public administra-
tion scholars focused on emergency management have developed
without such deliberate intervention?

A growing community of public administration scholars has con-
tributed signifi cantly to the disaster and emergency management
literature. An accurate accounting of the contributions of the initial
NASPAA/FEMA fellows may not be possible, but an informal
summary in table 1 refl ects the scope of the contributions (of those
fellows who responded to our inquiries). Th e fellows have produced
nearly 200 journal articles and book chapters, at least 24 books, at
least 64 non-peer-reviewed articles, and a variety of other reports
and publications.

Th e research areas studied by the fellows fall mainly into the fol-
lowing general categories: fl ood hazard, hurricane, and earthquake
mitigation; disaster management information technology; policy,
communication, coordination, organizational learning; decision
making under uncertainty, collaborative leadership, and presiden-
tial disaster declarations; intergovernmental relations; and national
policy directions. Fellows published articles with others in the fi elds
of urban planning, economics, rural sociology, computer science,
engineering, information sciences, medicine, public health, sociology,
and law. Fellows published articles in the major public administra-
tion, planning, and political science journals,2 as well as articles in
the specialized emergency management and disaster studies jour-
nals.3 Th eir publications also appeared in international journals.4

Research funding listed in table 1 came from the NSF and DHS,
U.S. Department of Defense, Centers for Disease Control, FEMA,
Public Entity Risk Institute, and IBM Center for the Business of
Government, among other organizations. Fellows have worked
with a variety of research centers, including those at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Delaware, and

Table 1 Scholarly and Other Contributions by FEMA Fellows

Type of Contribution Number Reported

Journal articles (peer reviewed) 121
Book chapters 78
Books 24
Symposia edited 12
Other activities
Non-peer-reviewed articles 64
PhD dissertations directed in hazards research 21
Master’s theses directed 2
Major speeches/testimony 110
Media interviews 475
Opinions/editorials 12
Grant funding received $7,851,372

544 Public Administration Review • July | August 2012

public administration, policy, and management during this time
period, with more than 40 percent of the articles published in the
Public Administration Review. In fi gure 1, the distribution of articles
published over the 24-year span, 1985–2009, reveals a striking
pattern of publication following major disaster events. Th e fi ndings
show that after the initial special issue on emergency management
published by PAR in 1985, the rate of publication dropped to near
zero in the subsequent four years. Th e publication rate showed
modest increases after major events in 1989, 1992, and 1994,
when it dropped again until the sharp increase in 2002 after 9/11.
Hurricane Katrina brought an even sharper increase in 2005 and
2006, when the publication rate declined yearly until 2009.

An obvious factor off setting the relatively low rate of published jour-
nal articles on emergency and disaster management during the late
1980s and 1990s was the substantial number of books published
during this period. Fellows and their coauthors published 18 of
the 24 books put out by workshop participants between 1985 and
2009. Th e remaining six books were published by Peter May and
William Petak, workshop instructors who have had a continuing
infl uence in mentoring the group of fellows.

Network analysis was used to document the network of 85 scholars
identifi ed as authors of the 131 research articles reported in table 2.
In this analysis, the authors represent nodes, and the citations by
authors constitute the links. Th e analysis of citations was con-
structed using two coding methods. Citation interactions among
the 85 authors were identifi ed by a manual review of the references
cited in each of the 131 articles included in the set of articles on
emergency and disaster management published during the period
1985–2009. An author’s citation of an article is considered an
“interaction” with the referent article being cited. Th e analysis was
conducted using UCINET software (Borgatti, Everett, and Freeman
2002).

Each article identifi ed by the search criteria was included in a Google
Scholar search, with the term “cited by” used to identify additional
“interactions.” Figure 2 shows the network diagram of the authors
and citations for the 131 articles reported in table 2. Th e centrality
statistics for the network of 85 authors shown in fi gure 2 are reported
in table 3. Th e network of interactions has a relatively low degree of
centralization at 27.8 percent. Th e frequencies for in-degree (number
of authors in the network citing a given author) citations and out-
degree (number of authors in the network cited by a given author)
citations may be accessed at http://www.cdm.pitt.edu for the authors
included in the network diagram shown in fi gure 2.

defi nitive answer, but it likely was a result of the shift in attention of
the presidential administrations in 1988 and 1992, the availability
of funding to support research in emergency management, as well
as the spate of natural disasters in the late 1980s and early 1990s
that off ered opportunities for hazards researchers to study ongoing
events.

The Wider Context of Research and Practice
To place the work of the NASPAA/FEMA fellows in the wider
context of public administration research, a set of peer-reviewed
research articles on emergency and disaster management published
in journals of public administration, policy, and management
between 1985 and December 2009 was identifi ed.5 Th is approach
off ers one metric for reviewing the contributions of NASPAA/
FEMA scholars to the wider fi eld of emergency management
research and supplements the record of published books.

Th e review of published articles included several steps. Advanced
Google Scholar searches were run with selected journals cited in
the publication fi eld.6 Journals were selected using three criteria: (1)
focus on public administration, public policy, and public manage-
ment; (2) publication in the United States; and (3) access to elec-
tronic fi les. Th e search does not claim to be comprehensive; instead,
it documents a public record of scholarly contributions to peer-
reviewed research in public administration, policy, and management
over 25 years and places the fellows in this record.

Journals were searched again using JSTOR as well as specifi c pub-
lication Web pages (e.g., Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford Journals, and
Berkeley Electronic Press, among others) using the same phrases.
Bibliographies were reviewed manually to identify additional
articles.7 To ensure a public administration focus, the authors’
academic departments and degrees were assessed using the Google
search function to determine whether they taught in public
administration, political science, and public aff airs programs or had
received their degrees from the same.

Table 2 reports the journals included in this review and the
frequency of articles identifi ed by the search terms “emergency
management,” “disaster management,” “crisis management,”
“mitigation,” “preparedness,” “response,” and “recovery.” One could
arguably add or subtract terms from this set of criteria, but the
search identifi ed a total of 131 articles published by scholars of

Table 2 Frequency Distribution of Research Articles on Emergency Management,
1985–2009

Journal N Percent

Public Administration Review 54 41.2
Publius 15 11.5
Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management 11 8.4
Public Organization Review 9 6.9
Administration & Society 7 5.3
Public Works Management and Policy 7 5.3
State and Local Government Review 7 5.3
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 6 4.6
Urban Affairs Review 6 4.6
American Review of Public Administration 5 3.8
The Forum 3 2.3
Natural Hazards 1 .8
Total 131 100.0

Figure 1 Frequency Distribution of Research Articles on
Emergency, Disaster Management by Year, 1985–2009

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration 545

Waugh was a member of 14, showing a clear infl uence not only
among these subsets of authors, but on the entire network as well.
Th is is a remarkable impact on the developing research community.
Th e network map of the selected articles and their citation links
based on the list of 131 articles is too extensive to be included in
this article, but it may be accessed at http://www.cdm.pitt.edu.
Th e centrality statistics for the entire article network again report a
low degree of centralization at 10.1 percent, indicating that no one
article is dominant.

In addition to their contributions to the research knowledge base,
fellows also introduced new material into the national dialogue on
emergency management, including a more precise understanding of
the processes and politics involved in presidential disaster declara-
tions, the public debate over the roles of FEMA and the DHS,
national and international network management, presidential deci-
sion making, the measurement of resilience, and a host of critical
public policy analyses. Among the most signifi cant contributions of
the fellows and their succeeding peers has been assistance with the
development of standards for the profession of emergency manage-
ment and for emergency management programs in higher educa-
tion. Th ese activities documented the contribution of the fellows to
the professional culture and practice of emergency management, an
important objective of the early NASPAA/FEMA agreement.

Future Research Directions
In 1984, the NASPAA/FEMA fellows identifi ed a set of issues in
emergency management that represented familiar tensions in public
administration. Five issues characterized the diffi cult environment
that FEMA, then only in its fi fth year of operation as an inde-
pendent government agency, confronted in developing a coherent
approach to disaster risk reduction for the nation. Th ese issues

Th e set of authors in this network includes four fellows—Cigler,
Comfort, Sylves, and Waugh—as nodes in the network, as well as
two instructors—May and Petak—from the class of 1984. Th e list
also includes two young researchers, Birkland and Kapucu, men-
tored by workshop participants, as well as two researchers, Gerber
and Stehr, who participated in the NSF’s Next Generation program.
Th is subset of fellows, instructors, and younger researchers men-
tored by them represents a signifi cant cluster of researchers actively
engaged in research on emergency management over this period.
Th e mean number of interactions (citations of articles by authors
listed in the set of selected journals) per author is 4.5, but the vari-
ance ranges to 25.4, with a minimum number of citations at 0 and
a maximum number of 27. While the analysis reveals that articles
by Waugh, Wise, Wamsley, Schneider, and Comfort are cited more
than others, the whole network shows a relatively low degree of
centralization, which indicates that no single article or author is
dominant.

More striking is the clique analysis of interactions (i.e., citations)
among authors, which identifi ed 16 distinct cliques consisting of
four authors each citing one another’s work. Of the 16 cliques,

Note: Isolates and pendants removed.
Figure 2 Network Diagram of Authors and Citations, 1985–2010

Table 3 Degree Centrality Statistics for Author Network

Degree NrmDegree Share

Mean 4.5 5.4 0.01
Std Dev 5.0 6.1 0.01
Sum 376.0 453.0 1.00
Variance 25.4 36.9 0.00
Minimum 0.0 0.0 0.00
Maximum 27.0 32.5 0.07

Network centralization = 27.80%

Heterogeneity = 2.70%, normalized = 1.53%

546 Public Administration Review • July | August 2012

changing conditions in which they occur and the set of interacting
structures and processes that characterize them. Several methods of
examining the phenomena associated with disasters off er unusual
opportunities for rapid learning and correction of error. Th ey are
summarized here.

Geographic information systems (GIS). GIS is now a mature
information technology, used commonly at all jurisdictional levels.
This was not the case in 1984, when organizations and jurisdictions
were struggling to understand the intrinsic complexity in almost any
disaster event and to place it in geographic context. Richard Sylves,
NASPAA/FEMA fellow, makes excellent use of this technology to
document, analyze, and illustrate the emerging pattern of federal
disaster declarations as a political vehicle by which presidential
administrations can win and maintain the support of key
constituencies. With funding from the Public Entity Risk Institute,
Sylves makes these data available on the Web site http://www.
peripresdecusa.org/mainframe.htm.

Legal and organizational analysis. Recognizing the discrepancy
between structures provided by law and processes that organizations
use in practice to fi t the law to their particular environments is a
continuing tension in defi ning clear responsibility for action in an
intergovernmental system. While not new, systematic analysis of
existing law and its application under emergency conditions is a
continuing task in identifying the limits of current law and proposing
corrective policies and actions. Fellows have documented the
changing requirements for emergency management in practice and
the diffi culty of providing a single legal framework and organizational
structure that fi ts all contexts for action in a large, diverse society.

Network analysis. As the focus shifted to understanding the
interactions among the many organizations and actors involved in
mitigating risk and responding to damaging events, scholars turned
to methods of identifying the key actors in these events and
measuring the strengths, weaknesses, and direction of the
relationships among them. Researchers have adapted network
analysis, a method used by sociologists to study patterns of social
interaction within small groups, to examine the degree of
centralization of authority, density, and distance among
organizations in systems of interaction in emergency response and
recovery. This method reveals both the functional and
dysfunctional links in interorganizational response and recovery
systems following disaster. The challenge is to return the insights
gained from this analysis of organizational relationships in practice

into revised policy and procedures that guide
performance more effectively in environments
exposed to risk.

Comparative case studies. While case studies
are the traditional method of studying disaster
events, scholars from the NASPAA/FEMA
workshop enriched this method by adding a
comparative perspective. Comparative analysis
provides a useful perspective in determining
what characteristics are common in reducing
risk for recurring hazards and what aspects of
response operations are unique to specifi c
contexts.

were magnifi ed in disaster environments that required an interdis-
ciplinary, multiorganizational, and multijurisdictional approach to
mitigating risk and responding to extreme events.

Th e fi rst issue, interorganizational coordination and collaboration,
involves the continuing strain of balancing responsibility in a federal
system with demands from state and local agencies, while coping
with widely varying levels of resources, training, and experience
among federal, state, and local jurisdictions in managing hazards.
Th e second issue, interoperability in communications, was primarily
focused on the limited bandwidth available for radio systems and
increasing the technical capacity of organizations to communicate
with one another across disciplinary, organizational, and jurisdic-
tional boundaries. Th ird, FEMA struggled to defi ne an integrated
approach to threats to national security and from natural hazards.
Th is approach created an uneasy partnership among separate
federal agencies involving diff erent modes of operation, concepts of
security, and processes for managing information. Fourth, the issues
of response and recovery from catastrophic disaster were very much
on the agenda in 1984, as lingering memories of the 1979 Th ree
Mile Island nuclear accident revealed the vulnerability of human
management of large-scale technical systems. Finally, recognition of
the continuing vulnerability of communities to a range of diff erent
hazards focused attention on the tasks of mitigation and prepared-
ness in building the capacity of communities to assess and manage
their own risk. Th e challenge was to enable communities to become
more resilient by reducing risk before hazardous events occurred.

Today, these same research issues remain as continuing tensions in
emergency management theory and practice, but they have become
more complex. Increases in the size of the U.S. population and the
movement of more people into hazard-prone areas, interdependen-
cies among technical and organizational systems, discrepancies in
available resources, and the severity of extreme events have magni-
fi ed diff erences in capacities to manage risk among jurisdictions and
organizations. Th e consequent shifts in scale and uncertainty lead
researchers and practicing managers to seek new methods of analysis
and monitoring for an increasing array of interdependencies among
public, private, and nonprofi t organizations. Th ese risks are global,
with a growing world population exposed to natural, technical, and
deliberate hazards.

In the remainder of this decade, these issues are likely to mutate
again. By 2020, we are likely to witness mega-crises as interdepend-
encies among the physical, built, and socioeconomic environments
deepen with an expanding world popula-
tion, advancing technologies, and increas-
ing disparities between policy and practice.
Recent decades have produced fresh theoreti-
cal frameworks for understanding risk, more
accurate methods for measuring and calibrat-
ing risk, and more eff ective means of assessing
and interpreting these measures to enable
emergency managers to

mitigate risk.

Methods and Models for
Understanding Disasters
Studying disasters as discrete events likely
compounds misunderstanding of the

Recent decades have produced
fresh theoretical frameworks
for understanding risk, more

accurate methods for measuring
and calibrating risk, and more

eff ective means of assessing and
interpreting these measures to
enable emergency managers to

mitigate risk.

Emergency Management Research and Practice in Public Administration 547

sociology. Collaboration among social scientists, engineers, and
computer scientists has increased, as technical issues have arisen in
the management of risk generated by large-scale technical systems
and expanding populations in regions exposed to recurring risk.
Evacuating vulnerable populations, for example, was both a social
and a technical challenge during the Hurricane Katrina disaster. It
remains a concern as populations continue to grow along coastlines.

Not all fellows went on to do research, teach, or provide public
service to the emergency management community. Some went back
to prior research and teaching agendas. Among those who focused
attention on disasters or emergency management, many conduct
research in their primary areas, such as public budgeting or intergov-
ernmental relations. A few fellows created academic degree or certifi –
cate programs, while some found their institutions unsupportive.

A substantial return on the NASPAA/FEMA investment is measured
in terms of increased scholarly attention to these issues, the develop-
ment of the next generation of researchers and public managers,
and a more informed grasp of the dynamics of risk reduction. Th ese
results suggest that similar investments by other public agencies
would continue to build the knowledge base for interdisciplinary,
interjurisdictional management of extreme events. Th e central task
lies in continuing to excite students and researchers to develop this
complex, dynamic fi eld. Th e impact of FEMA’s investment also sug-
gests that similar investments might be made by other agencies and
programs. For example, there is considerable interest among social
scientists in the integration of programs and cultures within the DHS,
which represents the largest federal reorganization since the creation
of the Department of Defense in 1946. Th ere is an opportunity to
focus social science researchers on problems that aff ect organizational
performance and policy design. Th e next decade is likely to see the
coalescence of these initiatives into a new fi eld of disaster science,
bringing public administration directly into the center of the fi eld.

Acknowledgments
Th is article is dedicated to Th omas Pavlak, an alumnus of the
1984 workshop, a distinguished scholar, and a friend. We also
acknowledge as collaborators in the preparation of this article
other participants in the 1984 workshop: Richard Sylves, David
Godschalk, Lenneal Henderson, Charles Bonser, Fred Carter, Jack
Kartez, Josephine LaPlante, William Petak, Sandra Sutphen, Robert
Whelan, and Sherman Wyman.

Notes
1. James Lee Witt, director, Federal Emergency Management Agency, statement to

the Association of State Flood Plain Managers Conference, Pittsburgh, 1994.
2. Selected journals include the Public Administration Review, Administration &

Society, Journal of Public Administration Research and Th eory, American Review
of Public Administration, Journal of the American Planning Association, Policy
Studies Journal, Public Organization Review, Th e Public Manager, State and Local
Government Review, Publius, Economic Development Quarterly, and Public Works
Management and Policy, as well as major social science journals such as the Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, American Behavioral
Scientist, and Industrial Crisis Quarterly.

3. Selected journals include the Journal of Emergency Management (William
L. Waugh, Jr., editor in chief ), Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency
Management, Environmental Hazards, Natural Hazards Review, and Prehospital
and Disaster Medicine.

Sociotechnical systems and decision support. Recurring problems
in coordination and collaboration are repeatedly attributed to
communication failures. In fact, neither coordination nor
collaboration can occur without communication. Advances in
telecommunications, computation, and the rapid expansion of
access to the Internet in the 1990s created opportunities for
exploring new means of decision support that would enable the
search, exchange, and transmission of more timely, accurate
information regarding emerging threats to managers and emergency
services personnel. Social networking platforms such as Twitter and
Facebook are being rapidly integrated into disaster environments
and warrant systematic study of their viability in support of
improved public response.

Complex adaptive systems. Increasingly recognized as vital for
understanding and managing extreme events, the theoretical
framework of complex adaptive systems offers insight into the dynamic
structure and processes that characterize emergency management.
With access to timely information through well-designed decision
support systems, emergency responders are demonstrating the validity
of this organizing framework for disaster risk reduction, response, and
recovery. Understanding the dynamics of emergency response is a
primary task for emergency managers. Such models offer constructive
means to balance the traditional command and control approach to
emergency management with more adaptive processes.

Hazard mitigation includes assessment of risk-informed decision
frameworks that utilize techniques and methods from risk analysis,
scenario planning, and multicriteria decision analysis. Mitigation
also considers the policy implications of cost–benefi t analysis.

2012 and Beyond
Th e research agenda over the next 10 years will likely become even
more interdisciplinary, interorganizational, and interjurisdictional as
public managers recognize that extreme events aff ect all structures,
organizations, and jurisdictions in a society. Th e threat of global
pandemics, rising sea levels, and interdependent technical, fi nan-
cial, and economic systems will raise more severe challenges on a
global scale. Emergency management is no longer a matter of local
concern, but national and international as well. Educating the next
generation of scholars, researchers, and mentors to identify, study,
and anticipate these changes is a requisite investment for sustainable
disaster risk reduction.

Th e 1984 workshop and the 1985 PAR special issue on emergency
management were the most visible products of the NASPAA/FEMA
agreement. Th is small investment in resources and time helped grow
the public administration research community. It also encouraged
the development of long-term relationships among researchers in
the fi eld, including those who joined the initial cohort in ASPA’s
Section on Crisis and Emergency Management and those who have
been mentored by the fellows. Th e linkages among researchers in
public administration and in regional and urban planning have been
strong for decades. Th e collaborations involving Beverly Cigler,
David Godschalk, Ray Burby, and Jack Kartez, which assembled
large teams from multiple disciplines, exemplify those linkages (see
Burby, French et al). Th e 1984 workshop also facilitated linkages
between the new disaster research community in public adminis-
tration and the longer-established disaster research community in

548 Public Administration Review • July | August 2012

Center for Disaster Management, Graduate School of Public and International Aff airs,
University of Pittsburgh. http://www.cdm.pitt.edu [accessed March 29, 2012].

Cigler, Beverly A. 2009. Emergency Management Challenges for the Obama
Presidency. International Journal of Public Administration 32(9): 759–66.

Comfort, Louise K. 1994. Self-Organization in Complex Systems. Journal of Public
Administration Research and Th eory 4(3): 393–410.

Drabek, Th omas E., and David A. McEntire. 2002. Emergent Phenomena and
Multiorganizational Coordination in Disasters: Lessons from the Research
Literature. International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters 20(2): 197–224.

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 1985. Th e NASPAA/FEMA
Public Administration Faculty Workshop on Emergency Management:
Conference Report. National Emergency Training Center, January.

McLoughlin, David. 1985. A Framework for Integrated Emergency Management.
Special issue, Public Administration Review 45: 165–72.

National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). 1993. Coping with Catastrophe:
Building an Emergency Management System to Meet People’s Needs in Natural and
Manmade Disasters. Washington, DC: NAPA.

National Governors Association. 1981a. Comprehensive Emergency Management: A
Governor’s Guide. Washington, DC: National Governors Association.

———. 1981b. Comprehensive Emergency Management: A Review Leader’s Guide.
Washington, DC: National Governors Association.

Petak, William J., ed. 1985. Special Issue on Emergency Management: A Challenge
for Public Administration. Public Administration Review 45.

Schneider, Saundra K. 1995. Flirting with Disaster: Public Management in Crisis
Situations. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Sylves, Richard T., and William L. Waugh, Jr. 1990. Cities and Disaster: North
American Studies in Emergency Management. Springfi eld, IL: Charles C. Th omas.

Terry, Larry D., and Camilla Stivers, eds. Special Issue on Democratic Governance in
the Aftermath of September 11, 2001. Public Administration Review 62.

Waugh, William L., Jr. 2007. Local Emergency Management in the Post-9/11 World.
In Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government, 2nd ed.,
edited by William L. Waugh, Jr., and Kathleen Tierney, 3–23. Washington, DC:
International City/County Management Association.

4. Selected journals include the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and
Disasters (leading sociology journal in the fi eld), Journal of Contingencies and
Crisis Management (Netherlands), Disasters (United Kingdom), Emergency
Management Studies (Japan), International Journal of Urban Sciences (South
Korea), Disaster Prevention and Management (United Kingdom), Journal of the
Chinese Institute of Engineers (Taiwan), and Confl ict Quarterly (Canada).

5. Th is section relies on the work of Clayton Wukich, who conducted the search for
research articles and the network analysis. We acknowledge his eff ort and thank
him for his insight.

6. Selected journals include Administration & Society, Journal of Homeland Security
and Emergency Management, Journal of Public Administration Research and
Th eory, Natural Hazards, Public Administration Review, Public Organization
Review, Public Works Management and Policy, Publius, State and Local
Government Review, American Review of Public Administration, Th e Forum, and
Urban Aff airs Review.

7. Th e authors acknowledge the methodology of Drabek and McEntire (2002).

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