Risk Governance

This chapter will address the major functions of the risk governance process: Each of these stages is described in the light three aspects of resilience: adaptive management capability, coping capability, and participative pre-estimation, interdisciplinary risk estimation (including scientific risk assessment and concern assessment), risk characterization and risk evaluation, and risk management, including decision-making and implementation (based on the IRGC risk governance model) capability. Furthermore, the chapter expands this perspective by suggesting four different forms of public and stakeholder involvement for coping with the three aspects of resilience, including a strategy where all none of the three aspects matter. The chapter concludes with some general remarks about the relationship between governance and resilience.

This chapter addresses the problem of risk management in an increasingly complex and labile world. The discussion of governance is situated within the theoretical framework of the risk society and develops a critical sociological understanding of the ways in which expert institutions handle risky situations that are marked by multiple uncertainties.

During most of the twentieth century, the exercise of governance was left largely to the discretion of formal governments, most notably the central state. Especially since the 1980s, however, we are seeing some important ‘shifts in governance’. Among the dominant modes of renewing governance is the process of decentralization, supported by idea that local authorities are in a better position to engage in bargaining or collaborative processes with local stakeholders and civil organizations. In addition, familiarity with local circumstances and interests gives local parties benefits in developing more integrated policies that are tailored to the local situation. Decentralization is, however, often pursued without a keen understanding of its possible or likely consequences, which is not without risks. These risks are especially prompt in the realm of environmental policies, as these relate to the protection of ecosystems, human health and future environmental qualities. In this chapter we will therefore reflect on the increasing role of the local level in environmental policy. We will do so based on both a theoretical exploration of theories on decentralization and empirical findings regarding the experiences in the Netherlands where decentralization in environmental policy is relatively well pronounced. We will explain that although decentralization has some important benefits to offer, also in the realm of environmental policies, central policies and regulations remain to play a key role in supporting, enabling and stimulating local good practices.

This chapter examines the roles that local government can play in nurturing civic engagement in the process of developing policies that ensure more resilient and sustainable practices at the local level. Drawing upon recent research undertaken in both Europe and New Zealand, we argue that the successful implementation of such policies is highly dependent upon the facilitation of effective processes of citizen engagement that are linked to the development of ‘soft infrastructure’ − the institutions, networks and processes that can support and maintain the capacity to change. Soft infrastructure is, in turn, discussed in terms of four variables: the levels of institutional and social capital in local government; the existence of learning processes that foster individual and collective transformation; and processes of governance that can through learning build on, yet be determined by levels of both institutional and social capital. Finally, in support of the conceptual framework we consider a regional marine-focused case study of risk governance two decades in the making. It shows that civic engagement − the inclusion of local experience and passion − can lead to collaboration across public and private spheres; a shared understanding of the requirements of the commons; the distribution of benefits from ‘gifts and gains’ policies; and the development of a ‘soft infrastructure’ that fosters resilience and the on-going implementation of sustainability practices.

Many of the most serious global impacts have emerged from the interaction of human activities in the scientific-technical-industrial system. Changing from largely disciplinary science to multi- and ultimately interdisciplinary science and management requires a new ontology and epistemology to be negotiated to help us understand complexity within the social context and how this relates to risk. This paradigmatic shift currently taking place in science is contributing to the development of new theory and practice. Systems thinking is often considered key to solving ill-defined complex environmental and social problems displaying uncertainty and increased risk. But it is unclear what this thinking is or would be and how it might be progressed in future. For the necessary change to occur I suggest an important step is to integrate the diversity of knowledge through developing a framework to share information across multiple ontologies and epistemologies to gain acceptance across the sciences.

Starting in the post-Civil War era, the United States moved steadily toward an industrialized mass production, mass consumption society. As corporations grew in size and enjoyed virtually unlimited risk self-governance, critics of such processes and practices battled to define what risk levels are safe and how fair any level of safety is. That battle continues today as a contest over each society’s willingness and ability to engage in the quality of risk governance sufficient to control risks in the public interest. This dialectic pits the self-interest of individual organizations against the aggregate risk management structures, processes, and co-created meaning of society: The rationale of society is the collective management of risk through effective, ethical control and societal efficacy. This chapter features that dialectic as it argues that risk management and communication is not only a technical and strategic challenge but also a cultural one whereby various voices of power discourse are engaged to abate and correct the locus and application of control. That dynamic includes the ability of organizations to benefit from risk management by shifting the cost of the risk onto key publics, whether other organizations, government or the general or specific publics. Starting in the 1970s in the US, the disciplines of risk management and communication, as well as issues management, matured to address the balances between the interests of risk generators, arbiters and risk bearers. This chapter uses that foundation along with the theory of deliberative democracy to reason that risk governance requires joined and collaborative discourse to wisely understand, fairly distribute, and ethically benefit from risk-reward relationships which ultimately make society more fully functioning through appropriate balances of control and efficacy. To that end, the chapter features concepts such as legitimacy, control, and efficacy as foundational to the rationale of authority necessary for effective and ethical risk governance.

Over the past century, a number of mega catastrophes have revealed mitigation, risk reduction, and disaster recovery as processes which primarily revolve around social, not physical, infrastructure. Residents with deeper reservoirs of social capital display more resilience than individuals who have fewer social ties, so that areas in which horizontal associations are more active are more likely to regain population lost to disaster. Further, in the absence of a strong government, informal and formal institutions including neighborhood associations and organized criminal groups (such as the yakuza in Japan) may serve as providers of key resources when standard sources of information, assistance, food, and aid are closed. Decision makers and scholars alike must recognize that, given the unavoidable nature of risks and the increasing frequency and severity of disaster, social capital and social networks will be core engines for mitigation and recovery in the future.

Starting from a definition of risk governance, the paper examines a number of environmental contingencies and crises where traditional risk assessments based on expert calculations and computer models proved inadequate. While the growing inclusion of uncertainty in scientific descriptions and forecasts is recognized, the tendency to express it in probabilistic terms is criticized because it fails to account for the complexity of natural phenomena and their interactions with human actions. The paper argues that contributions from different disciplines and other types of knowledge need to be integrated for improving disaster prevention and response. This implies a redefinition of the role of science in society as well as a general change of attitude, revisiting Descartes’ idea of humans as “masters and possessors of nature”.

The importance of education in disaster risk reduction has been emphasized in several international governance and policy agenda, frameworks, conferences as well as UN programs. The Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015 prepared by the UN/ISDR emphasizes the role of formal and non-formal education and awareness raising as an important component for disaster risk reduction. Responding to the call from the UN/ISDR 2006–2007 campaign, various international and/or regional conferences and workshops on school safety and school education were held, and countries have developed national action agenda addressing the issue on integrating disaster risk reduction into the education curriculum as well as ensuring safety of school buildings. This chapter identifies 16 specific tasks of HFA, termed as E-HFA under five priority areas, which are related to the education governance in terms of disaster risk reduction. The chapter also demonstrates an example of implementing of E-HFA in Taiwan, and explores of possibility of E-HFA in the training programs in Myanmar.

This paper explores the reasons for the rapid increase in number of disasters and disaster losses over the past few decades. It explains why disasters can no longer be regarded as unique events specific to particular places, but often have widespread consequences far beyond the initial location of the triggering events. It is proposed that apparently independent events are connected by sharing some root causes in common. The metaphor of “epidemic” is used to suggest approaches than can be used to identify root causes and to begin to address them. This takes disaster risk reduction and management a stage further than reliance on attempts to reduce exposure and vulnerability, and seeks to find the common underlying causes. As the 10 year life of the Hyogo Framework for Action ends in 2015 there is an opportunity to develop a new forensic approach to investigations of disasters and to bring about a substantial paradigm shift in disaster risk management that places more emphasis on common responsibilities and integrated approaches in the context of more sustainable development.

Disaster researchers and professional emergency managers have historically been constrained by prior concepts and our failure to understand the implications of alternate theoretical perspectives. The notion of risk management is proactive and addresses risk identification, risk assessment, and risk treatment. However, it does not really provide guidance during the crisis period of disasters or the process of recovery. In contrast, emergency management has traditionally focused on preparedness and response issues while ignoring the need to reduce the occurrence or impact of disasters. This chapter discusses these epistemological problems and then explores how the concept of comprehensive vulnerability management may help bridge the gap between proactive and reactive approaches to disasters. In particular, the chapter argues that the concepts of liability reduction and capacity building may help to unify the disparate views espoused by both scholars and professionals.

Leadership and governance are two concepts very central to disaster management. This chapter analyzes disaster and crisis management in two mega-disasters of 2010: the Haiti Earthquake and Pakistan Floods. These two cases are compared and contrasted from collaborative governance, international coordination, and multi-layered leadership perspectives. Findings indicate that leadership is a multi-layered and multi-dimensional phenomenon and concept in disasters and collaborative settings. Leadership layers comprise presidential and political leadership, civilian government leadership, military leadership, international humanitarian leadership which is primarily UN centric, and also community leadership. Comparative governance and leadership structures in the two countries show that the Pakistan military response and their leadership stand out because of their commendable efforts in the flood response and relief phases. On the other hand, Haiti has no military forces and had to rely heavily on the US military. Overall political leadership seems to be very weak in the two countries. The issue of competitive elections in Haiti, the deaths of many government officials and the destruction of government offices in the capital city contributed to worsening Haiti’s government response. Findings also indicate that the International humanitarian leadership which is UN centric, and follows a UN cluster approach, has ample shortcomings and needs to be revamped and improved.

Risk governance is an approach adopted to understand and comprehensively handle the complexity of the decision-making processes involved in risk production and reduction. In this chapter, it is argued that the evaluation of risk governance may go beyond the measurement of performance and advancement in disaster risk reduction—it can also act to increase social learning and risk awareness, to reach consensus over the equitable distribution of risks and to negotiate a preferred level of risk. Thus, participatory evaluation is proposed to increase the exchange and sharing of the different concerns, knowledges, interests, and values of societal players. Finally, an evaluation framework based on a mixed hierarchical and networked structure of criteria, components, and the dimensions of risk governance is advanced to complete the evaluation system. In this framework, criteria should measure not just policy development but also organizational structure, as well as the role of societal actors and the intervention of formal and informal arrangements.

Accelerated climate change and increasing variability is the single greatest threat to humanity. Despite more extreme weather events across the world there appears to be a lack of urgency in reaching an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This chapter reviews the evolution of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and argues that the governance of the convention is a mess and the reliance on market based measures are unlikely to produce the reduction in emissions that are needed if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. This chapter posits that the society is missing from the governance of climate change. The current debate is dominated by climate scientists as well as economists, but those that will be impacted the most, the people, have little or no voice. That must change.

A fundamental obstacle to more effective management of uncertainty in wicked policy problems is a collective failure during policy debates to recognize that our values and interests not only shape the way we look at science and expert advice, but that they also drive disagreement over how problems should be identified, prioritized, and responded to. The sooner these values can be openly debated, I argue, the sooner competition between goals and priorities can be resolved, thereby allowing disputes over uncertainty in competing specialist advice to be overcome. Science will then be able to concentrate on the task of how best to achieve, as opposed to expecting it to somehow determine, what is politically acceptable.

Governance, focusing on relationships between organizations and social groups involved in water decision making, usually has not been given as much attention as technical matters related to water risk management. Furthermore, implementation challenges are endemic in management. Integrated water resource management (IWRM) is one means to achieve effectiveness and efficiency through systematic coordination and collaboration. Effective integration (IWRM) and innovative governance can improve implementation, and thereby enhance capacity to address water risk management.

Landscapes are constructed physically and mentally by people and human society. Whilst ancient geological processes and ongoing biophysical processes have provided the underpinnings of landforms and natural resources, human society and its technologies, particularly since the industrial revolution, have shaped landscapes at multiple scales. Changing landscapes include the development of intensive human settlements, enhanced water catchments, mono-cultures, and reduced natural buffers which influence exposure and vulnerability to natural and other hazards. Human shaping and perceptions of landscapes have also created a sense of community, attachment and identity to those places and landscapes, a blend of human community and ecological interrelationships defining that place and attachment to it. Landscape governance refocuses multi-level policy and decision making on spatial contexts that reflect the greatest extent of internalisation of interdependencies of social-ecological relations; that is, between socially constructed spaces and the ecosystem function and conditions of places. The landscape context so defined gives rise to hazard vulnerabilities and opportunities for adaptation and responses to hazards and natural disasters. The concept of landscape governance augments understanding and practice towards participatory governance and will prove to be a useful tool to provide innovative direction to risk policy, planning and response.

Mountain environments have been subject to a disproportionate number of disasters and their complex geo- and social-ecological systems pose significant challenges for managing risk from natural and other hazards. The evolution of disaster risk in mountain environments and the governance response to hazards and vulnerabilities is described using examples from the Himalaya, Andes, Alps and North American Cordillera. While the potential for hazardous processes always has been inherently high, the social-ecological systems have evolved rapidly from relatively discrete and isolated pockets of population, subsistence land uses, and commodity exchange to larger, diversified social structures and economies. This has magnified exposures and vulnerabilities, eroded physical and socio-economic isolation, and broadened the need for pro- and reactive risk governance both within and beyond the mountains. Needed is risk governance that: incorporates local resources and needs with those at the national and international scales, recognizes spatio-temporal dimensions and process cascades in risk, and creates the conditions for building resilience in risk-prone social-ecological systems.

Coastal zones are not only some of the most populous areas of the planet, but are also some of the most hazardous, facing a wide range of hazards alongside environmental degradation and increasing development pressures. The inter-connectivity of coastal systems, both human and physical, provides particular challenges to risk management, especially in the context of the complex governance regimes of such areas, where contrasting land and marine institutions and policies come together. After a brief overview of traditional approaches to coastal risk management, the chapter focuses on the role and potential of integrated planning and management in facilitating a more balanced and sustainable approach to coastal risk management. Within such discussions the value and potential of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) alongside other integrated and spatial planning approaches is explored. ICZM has frequently been endorsed as a means of managing competing resources and ‘wicked’ (multi-dimensional) coastal problems, and so potentially has a valuable role to play. Drawing on a range of examples, particularly from European experiences, the chapter evaluates the extent to which ICZM contributes to coastal risk management. Whilst not a panacea, the chapter concludes that ICZM may be able to facilitate the development of more adaptable and palatable approaches for local communities, much needed in the context of coastal climate change impacts.

The high seas have always engendered a range of emotions and reactions from humans. Curiosity, fear, even terror, of this great expanse of ocean which cover 70 % of Earth – the blue planet. Yet the sheer size of the oceans and the difficulty of transporting across them meant the ‘high seas’ were largely ignored by the vast majority of humans for centuries. Humans were largely confined to land with the only interest in the seas being as trade routes and the defence of the land. In fact all the way up to the last quarter of the twentieth century a nation’s territorial sea extended only three nautical miles off shore – the distance that a cannon ball could be fired.

Several contradictions pose problems of synthesis and integration for agents of governance but keep the field buoyant with possibilities of theoretical and practical innovation. This chapter suggests that expanded dialog and collaboration among the different research and policy communities should be encouraged with a view to resolving some of the existing contradictions of discourse and practice while learning ways of accommodating megacity societies to those that remain.

Natech risk refers to risk originating from conjoint natural and technological hazards. In this chapter, we are concerned with risk governance of Natechs involving technological hazards arising from the processing, handling and/or storage of hazardous materials (hazmats), as well as the transportation of oil and gas by pipeline. Examples of Natechs include large fires at an oil refinery in Chiba following the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami in 2011; multiple oil spills from offshore platforms following the passage of Hurricane Katrina in the US Gulf of Mexico in 2005; or the multiple fires and hazmat releases triggered by the Kocaeli earthquake in Turkey in 1999. Risk governance of Natechs presents particular challenges. Natech risk originates from the overlapping of natural, environmental and technological causes, making it predominantly complex and uncertain. Growing urban populations, industrialization, and globalization have resulted in more people and property at risk from natural hazards and secondary effects such as major Natech accidents. While concern over Natechs has been on the rise among researchers and government officials, a general framework for the governance of Natech risk is lacking in most countries. This chapter provides an overview of Natech hazards, their characteristics and the problems associated with Natech risk governance. We use the IRGC risk governance framework for guidance.

In the pre-modern time, natural hazards were viewed as divine retributions decreed from on high by divine forces such as Fortuna -the Roman goddess of fate and translated into English as fortune. People were passively exposed to these ‘strokes of fate’ and believed that they were unable to change them. The Enlightenment project sought to bring such fates under human control by moulding the world to their purposes. The interventions meant that natural hazards which were previously seen as external to and beyond the social realm became increasingly intertwined with it. Modernity and its “technoscience turned what was nonhuman Nature into something contingent and coincident with human society” (Luke 1999: 10), and by doing so it transformed hazards into risks. The distinction between the two lies in the role of human intervention in nature. Whereas hazard refers to a natural event, risk refers to an event whose occurrence is directly or indirectly linked to human action. “Risks are made, hazards naturally occur”, as Ulrich Beck (2012: 13–15) put it. It is this understanding of risk which is at the heart of Beck’s ‘risk society’ and the hallmark of what he calls ‘reflexive modernity’ (Beck 1996). He argues that, the present ecological crisis, along with other social transformations, signifies the emergence of a new form of societal arrangement which he describes as ‘risk society’. Risk society represents a new phase in the process of modernisation in which the ‘production of

wealth

is systematically accompanied by the social production of

risks

’ (Beck 1992: 19). He suggests that “the more modern a society becomes, the more unintended consequences it produces, and as these become known and acknowledged, they call the foundations of industrial modernisation into question” (Beck 1998: 91). He describes this contemporary social experience as ‘reflexive modernisation’ referring to an era “when modernity is dealing with problems literally of its own making” (Dalby 2008: 445). Concerns about risk usher in deep anxieties about security. The more we have ‘fabricated uncertainties’ (Beck 1996) the greater our sense of insecurity. In the contemporary ‘ecologies of fear’ (Davis 1999) the risk society becomes intertwined with the security society. Like risk, security is socially produced but, “whereas risk threatens, security promises” (Zedner 2003: 176). It gives people both a

sense

of being safe and the

means

to achieve that. It promises a condition in which risk is non-existent, neutralised or avoided (ibid). While non-existence of risk is utopian, the desire for neutralization or avoidance of risk provides the rationale for relentless pursuit of security (Davoudi 2012). Risk and security, therefore, feed from one another in the sense that keeping up the demand for security requires maintaining a heightened sense of risk. Attraction of such circularity has led to the recasting of many social and environmental problems as security measures. Furthermore, security is not just a means to an end (i.e. protection from risk), but is an end in itself (i.e. a positive good). It is “sold as a desirable product in and of its own right” (Zedner 2003: 160). The pursuit of security is as much about security providers seeking

raison d’etres

for their operations as it is about risk prevention. As a commodity with a price, security becomes factored into both private suppliers’ and urban governance’s strategic decisions and calculations with profound distributional implications and potential for political exploitation. For urban governance security is becoming a highly sought-after commodity which competes with other commodities in terms of economic and social costs. As Sassen (2011) suggests, security is increasingly urbanized, and cities are increasingly in competition with one another in positioning themselves on the world’s league tables of ‘safe places’. Emphasis is shifting from urban sustainability to risk and security. Together, risk and security provoke strong emotions and legitimise extraordinary exercise of power. They renounce or displace social conflicts and lead to practices which may otherwise seem indefensible. They create imaginaries of fear which renounce social conflict, foreclose politics, and crowd out descending voices. They squeeze out the arenas in which questions about justice, fairness and conflicts can be raised. Thus, ‘the hallmark of the reflexive modernity has become not just the risk society, as Beck suggests, but also the security society’ (Davoudi, Environ Plann C: Govern Policy 32(2):360–375, 2014). The recasting of social and environmental problems as security problems reflects and reinforces securitisation as the hegemonic discourse of the twenty-first century.

Risk research has conceptualized ‘tolerable risk’ to describe activities considered worthwhile for the value added or the benefits they provide but sufficiently uncertain to require specific measures to diminish and limit their likely adverse consequences. In practice, simple decision heuristics can offer a valuable help; in distinct policy fields – i.e. nuclear safety, occupational health and safety – formalized tolerability of risk (ToR) models have been successfully developed. ToR models tend to combine technical probabilistic estimates about the magnitude and harm of a risk with a societal criterion that integrates the perceptions of the non-experts. In order to achieve a result that is acceptable to society, societal input needs to be carefully organized along a honest two-way non-persuasive dialogue between experts, government and non-experts.

Coastal cities face tremendous shocks and challenges in the years ahead. Cultivating urban resilience will be a challenge but will offer opportunities to enhance quality of life and livability, as the efforts of cities like Rotterdam show.

Risk reduction depends on appropriate forms of governance capable of responding to a need for improved survivability in unpredictable futures. The decision-making process for consequent risk governance required for sustainable development is driven by knowledge, power, culture and environment. These influences operate systemically and at the individual level – they are in turn dependent on awareness, communication and education. Though governance is correctly identifiable as a structural phenomenon in need of ongoing reform, the entire package of risk governance as part of the development process cannot be separated from reaction to risks and human agency. This includes the role of personality, altruism, kinship, gender, faith and non-faith based beliefs and the need for awareness, with rights and responsibilities for disaster reduction and development. This short contribution presents seven bullets to indicate what risk and resilience governance would involve and a further seven bullets to indicate characteristic ‘good disaster risk governance’.

Risks are always managed within a broader context of relationships between governments, citizens, civil society and business. The various elements of what has been termed ‘new governance’ include the emergence of multi-level structures and processes and the ‘hollowing out’ of the nation state; moves away from the exercise of centralised authority; the application of new forms of authority and control; and a changing distribution of responsibilities between the state and other actors. Whilst such governance characteristics can be discussed in sweeping terms, in practice there are considerable differences between countries and regions in the extent to which these trends of change have taken place. In this chapter we present a framework for profiling some of the key dimensions of natural hazard governance. The aim was to capture the variability and dynamism of governance practice through a simple structure that enables any chosen national, regional or local natural hazard governance context to be profiled against a set of eight governance characteristics.

A perplexing problem in risk governance is why some apparently relatively minor risks often elicit strong public concerns and substantially affect risk governance. Social amplification is an analytic framework that links the technical properties of risk with cultural dimensions of risk and risk-related behavior. The main thesis is that risks interact with the governance process and shape extensively public evaluation and responses to the risk. An important result is what we term “ripple effects,” or secondary impacts. And risk governance must take public concerns, perceptions, and ripple effects into account in decision making.

In recent years, resilience has rapidly become a mainstream notion in addition to disaster vulnerability. The concept of social resilience focuses on the social capacities available beyond the capacities of the formal disaster management sector, and is also redressing the victimising and disempowering effects of the vulnerability notion. While having a number of strong points, the resilience project also carries risks to society. Whether promoting resilience reduces people’s vulnerability to disaster is highly dependent on a person’s socioeconomic standing and the larger socio-economic and political context. Hence, we should be critical about the fiction promoted by the retreating neo-liberal state that everyone can be equally resilient. The emphasis on resilience seems to be the product of a political discourse that seeks to shift the responsibility for mediating the impact of disasters from the state to the society and therefore may engender the same problems and feelings of disenchantment as the neo-liberal project creates in other societal domains and the economy at large. We have to study the potential negative political effects the neo-liberal project inheres in order to fully gauge its impact on vulnerable disaster-stricken individuals and communities, and how it may affect the governance of risk ultimately.

The communication of risk, especially as presented by some popular media outlets, can obfuscate many of the real threats to society conveying fear where the actual risk may be minimal while dismissing others that can create significant problems. For governance purposes, then, it is important that different aspects of risk are carefully explored including geophysical criteria, vulnerability metrics, behavioral concerns, probability and risk levels, hazardousness of place, and the dynamic, ever-changing nature of systems. In addition, some responsibility must be placed on personal accountability in hazardous environments. In this way, hazard managers can be informed as to appropriate and necessary remedial action to mitigate risk.

Risk is usually defined to be the product of (hazard) × (vulnerability), or alternately, (hazard) × (exposure). Ameliorating risk can be accomplished either by reducing the hazard, or reducing the exposure to the hazard. For natural hazards, it is usually not possible to prevent the hazard. Earthquakes and hurricanes are examples, although events such as human-induced earthquakes in areas of ground water injection may be exceptions. One strategy is to simply move away from hazardous areas, thereby reducing the exposure to the hazard. Another method is to alter and strengthen physical structures and social processes so that they are less susceptible to disruption and destruction.

The concept of

entry into and exit out of a crisis mode of socio-ecological systems

is a powerful tool for dealing with social learning in the face of large-scale risks. This concept can be used both for descriptive and normative research. We briefly sketch the concept using the example of the European heat wave in 2003.