Negotiated Agreement(s) as a Means of local-level Crisis Management An indicative case study on the functions of a voluntary crisis management agreement at the municipality of Gronau (Westf.), Germany
by
Lennart Heimbach s1208926
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, program Public Administration, University of Twente
2019
Supervisors: Dr. P. J. Klok, University of Twente Dr. A.J.J. Meershoek, University of Twente R. Hoff, Municipality of Gronau (Public Order & Safety Dept.)
The author would like to reserve special thanks to the municipality of Gronau and his practical tutor Mr. Hoff for their willingness to participate in this project. Moreover, I am highly grateful to my academic tutors, Mr. Klok & Mr. Meershoek, for their supervision and valuable feedback at several moments in time throughout the project. Lastly, I would like to articulate my appreciation for the LaTeX-Community, without whom it would not have been possible to present the project in the beautiful way it currently is. Abstract Modern crisis management (CM) faces increasingly severe consequences of climate change, with the poorest populations often the most vulnerable. Accordingly, we argue that CM deals with similar policy challenges as modern environmental governance, namely (1) significant steering capacities of policies and (2) the sourcing & availability of policy-relevant information to tackle uncertainty about future climate developments. In this regard, environmental negotiated agreements have been proven especially fruitful in the Netherlands and beyond (Bressers, De Bruijn, & Lulofs, 2009). Hence, translating scientific knowledge on environmental governance and related policy implementation processes to CM settings could help policy-makers formulate effective disaster governance strategies aiding the effectiveness of crisis preparations, without needing to invest equal resources and time. Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) has been proven to effectively conceptualise and explain gover- nance outcomes in Dutch sustainability management contexts (Bressers & De Boer, 2011). The imple- mentation of a recent CM harmonisation law in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia allows us to apply the theory in a local-level disaster governance context and test the effectiveness of a negotiated CM agreement. We employ Elinor Ostrom’s IAD framework to structure our institutional analysis and conceptualise how disaster governance processes can lead to strengthened CM capacities. We found that CM in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is, similar to other settings (Aysan & Lavell, 2014), heavily institutionalised in terms of traditional core actors. Accordingly, local network structures are coherent, but highly inaccessible to parties outside this legal framework, which contradicts findings on the benefits of broad actor involvement (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu, Arslan, & Demiroz, 2010; Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall, Cutter, & Nguyen, 2014). Due to the partners’ strongly legitimised positions, concerns over transparency and accountability, moreover, form the limitations to flexible governance processes. However, our survey results (n = 8) indicate that negotiated CM agreements could indeed offer long-term solutions to these issues in terms of relational governance factors, such as mutual understanding, the use of common terminologies, organisational learning, improvements to formal and informal relations, on the one hand, as well as overall information management capacities, on the other. With time limiting our analysis, we believe these expectations regarding relational aspects point to the initiation of a new process of policy and network-level resource development. ii CONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
2 Theory 3 2.1 Crisis Management as a field of Governance ...... 3 Crisis mitigation as a public service delivery ...... 5 Policy effectiveness at the network level of CM ...... 6 2.2 Policy-making in the CIT framework ...... 7 Earlier policy decisions as drivers for institutionalisation ...... 8 Network qualities as structural-context variables ...... 9 2.3 Variables of interest & their alleged relations ...... 11
3 Method 14 3.1 Strategy & Design ...... 14 Institutional context analysis ...... 15 Cooperative context analysis ...... 15 Covenant performance in CM settings ...... 15 3.2 Data collection methods & Data analysis ...... 16 Law & Document analysis ...... 16 Workshop Poll ...... 17 Survey ...... 17
4 Results 20 4.1 Geo-Legal circumstances of CM in Gronau ...... 20 German Disaster Control before German unification (1968) ...... 20 CM devolution after German unification (1998) ...... 22 Modern CM governance in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (2015) ...... 27 Institutional development of CM in Germany ...... 30 Local geographical circumstances shaping CM preparations in Gronau ...... 31 4.2 Network governance qualities at Gronau municipality ...... 32 Extent of strategic crises preparation cooperation ...... 32
iii Coherence of strategic crises preparation cooperation ...... 33 Flexibility of strategic crises preparation cooperation ...... 34 Intensity of strategic crises preparation cooperation ...... 35 Network governance qualities at Gronau ...... 36 4.3 The agreement’s effects on supportive CM tasks ...... 37
5 Conclusion 39
References 42
Appendix A - Disaster specific GAT 45
Appendix B - Completed GAT 46
Appendix C - Survey items 47
Appendix D - Survey results 48
List of Abbreviations
BHKG Gesetz uber¨ den Brandschutz, die Hilfeleistung und den Katastrophenschutz CIT Contextual Interaction Theory CM Crisis Management FB Fire Brigade FSHG Gesetz uber¨ den Feuerschutz und die Hilfeleistung GAT Governance Assessment Tool IAD Institutional Analysis & Development Framework IM Independent Municipality (E)NA (Environmental) Negotiated Agreement SSP Sonderschutzplan (Disaster Management Plan) UNDP United Nations Development Program
iv CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In 2017 the world has experienced one of its most relentless years on record in terms of disasters, witnessing numerous severe weather events such as hurricanes, typhoons, floods and wildfires (Swiss Re Institute, 2018). A total of 335 natural disasters affected 95.6 million people, with an estimated 9.697 deaths and many displaced (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, 2018). On top of the human detriment, economic damages reached an estimated $337bn - an increase of 63% compared to the preceding year - with man-made disasters accounting for only $7bn (Swiss Re Institute, 2018). As average global temperatures are projected to rise (NASA, 2010; IPCC, 2018), many expect such extreme events to occur more frequently and severely (Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006; Artiningsih, Setyono, & Yuniartanti, 2016). In turn, these impact populations unequally across the socio-economic scale, with less developed communities most vulnerable to severe events (Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006; Norris et al., 2007; Groven, Aall, Van den Berg, Carlsson-Kanyama, & Coenen, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014) and their administrative structures least capable of delivering community services (Gall et al., 2014). On the one hand, these developments lie at the core of modern climate change debates to sustain a liveable habitat for future generations. On the other hand, they dictate a strong context for forthcoming crisis management (CM) preparations (Aysan & Lavell, 2014) as affected societies and their governments will face rising economic costs (NASA, 2010; IPCC, 2018) and increased scrutiny (Aysan & Lavell, 2014).
Hence, CM appears deeply interwoven with modern environmental management as it is confronted with the increasing consequences of unsustainable behaviour (Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006; Groven et al., 2012; Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014; IPCC, 2018). Whereas research on the structural antecedents of policy effectiveness in environmental management is extensive, however, such a systematic approach is sparse in disaster governance literature (Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014). Bressers (1999) argues that sustainability management faces three central challenges, namely (1) legitimacy, (2) steering capacity, and (3) policy-relevant information. Policy-makers, in turn, have two ways of dealing with uncertainty, with some avoiding uncertainty (science) while others are more open to learning from mutual experiences (flexibility & decentralisation) (Arentsen, Bressers, & O’Toole, 2000; Aysan & Lavell, 2014). Overall, networking can be regarded advantageous under these circumstances (Jones, Hesterly, & Borgatti, 1997; Provan & Miward, 2001; Bressers, 2004; Aysan & Lavell, 2014), with negotiated agreements (or ’covenants’) proving especially fruitful in achieving sustainability goals in the Netherlands and beyond (Bressers et al., 2009). Due to its interdependency with climate change processes, therefore, we believe CM faces identical challenges within a multi-scale (horizontal/vertical/over time) environment (Bressers & Rosenbaum,
1 2003; Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014), namely (1) effectiveness (steering capacity) (Kapucu et al., 2010; Gall et al., 2014) as well as (2) dealing with uncertainty (policy-relevant information) (Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014) in times of informal information structures (Norris et al., 2007) and public service deliveries through semi-governmental networks (Jones et al., 1997; Provan & Miward, 2001) - the latter is commonly referred to as ’disaster governance’ in CM literature (Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014). Similar to sustainability management, flexibility, and organisational learning are desirable dur- ing disaster mitigation efforts (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014), too, when crises ”cause heavy losses to capital assets, disrupt production and the flow of goods and services in the affected economy” (Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006, p.217; Tierney, 2012).
If these correlative assumptions hold true, and with decentralisation a central topic of disaster gover- nance (Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014; Artiningsih et al., 2016), too, transferring knowledge and translating theoretical insights could prove beneficial in terms of preparing communities and their administrations while saving time and costs (Gall et al., 2014). Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) (Bressers, 2004; Bressers & De Boer, 2011), constructed upon evidence from environmental policies, appears to be such a theory. The implementation of a harmonisation law (’Law on fire control, assistance, and disaster control’) on the organisation of regional and local CM structures by the German Land (read ’state’) of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2015, allows us to apply the theory in a local disaster governance set- ting at the municipality of Gronau and investigate the possible functioning of a negotiated CM agreement.
Accordingly, the following central research question will guide our case study: Can a negotiated agreement enhance perceived performance of crisis preparation efforts in the relevant institutional and governance contexts of the municipality of Gronau, and how (not)?
To answer this question, the following sub-questions will structure our approach:
1. How has local crisis management been institutionalised in Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia? 2. How do cooperative crisis preparation efforts at the municipality of Gronau currently take shape within the local network of relevant crisis partners? 3. How does a negotiated agreement between local crisis management partners contribute to crisis preparation efforts at the municipality of Gronau as expected by strategic employees?
In other words, the aim of our field study at the municipality of Gronau, Germany, is to provide indicative evidence on the suitability of voluntary instruments for improving local CM capacities. More specifically, we want to instigate a new methodological approach for future disaster governance research. In doing so, we will first analyse the legal (sub-question 1) and operational (sub-question 2) contexts of such an agreement, before measuring its performance in an ex-ante evaluation by relevant strategic employees.
2 CHAPTER 2
THEORY
Our central research question ponders whether a negotiated agreement (NA) can be regarded as an effective tool for facilitating contingent CM capacities, and, if so, in which ways that is the case. Answering this question, however, requires a substantial definition of performance in disaster governance prior to disasters in the first place. In the following section, we will discuss the most recent literature on this topic, conceptualise CM as a public service delivery through semi-governmental networks and relate relevant findings to the broader CIT framework on policy implementation. Afterwards, we will elaborate relevant institutional and network context variables according this theory (Bressers & De Boer, 2011; Bressers, Bressers, Kuks, & Larrue, 2016) for sub-questions one and two, respectively. We do so, because we believe the framework can contribute to our understanding of policy-making processes in crisis preparation efforts, as discussed in the introduction. We conclude our theoretical chapter with a summary of variables of interest and their alleged relations.
2.1 Crisis Management as a field of Governance According to Aysan and Lavell (2014), disaster governance takes place across three distinct phases, namely (1) disaster risk reduction, (2) disaster risk preparation, and (3) disaster risk mitigation, with the latter two incorporated in the term CM. As our research focusses on tactical administrative aspects of CM, however, we will ignore aspects of proactive disaster risk reduction. Tierney (2012), in her review article, describes disaster governance in terms of its social, economic, and political dimensions, which was reverberated by the UNDP (as cited in Aysan & Lavell, 2014). As a starting point, she conceptualises governance in CM in terms of collaborative multi-actor (horizontal), multi-level (vertical) networks (see Bressers & Rosenbaum, 2003; Srikandini, Van Voorst, & Hilhorst, 2018) of coherent sets of actors serving global community interests, namely mitigating disruptions to the functioning of societies. She argues that disaster governance can best be described in terms of (1) the levels & scales involved, (2) the entities participating in the network, and (3) their activities. Simultaneously, she argues that network cooperation produces benefits crisis preparation and re- lief efforts, such as cost-efficient resource acquisition or mutual learning before. Interestingly for our research, Tierney (2012, p.347) points to the ”complexity with respect to scales of activity, variability with respect to the participation of entities across the temporal phases of the hazards cycle, comprehen- siveness, and integration across different types,” as structural challenges of CM networks, and argues that most are still reactive and incomprehensive in kind. Aysan and Lavell (2014) agree and urge practi- tioners to increase horizontal integration besides recent efforts of vertical administrative decentralisation.
3 When researching possible contributions of networking behaviour to a community’s ability of dealing with disastrous events, Norris et al. (2007) found earlier that (1) equal economic development, (2) social capital, (3) information & communication resources, and (4) community competences facilitate more resilient communities in terms of redundant resources & rapid response patterns. They argue that these aspects are ideally described as ”adaptive” (see Bressers & De Boer, 2011; Tierney, 2012). Firstly, fair distribution of economic resources, risks and vulnerabilities enhances the diversity of economic means, and leads to more resilient communities, with poverty and land-use having been identified as ”a key driver of disaster risk” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.15). Furthermore, social embeddedness in terms of formal organisational linkages, informal ties, citizen participation, and a sense of attachment to as well as identification with the broader community contributes to resilience through factually received, but also perceived, social support during crises situations (Norris et al., 2007). These can, in turn, be improved by decentralised CM authorities and resources allowing citizen participation in the formulation and implementation of CM preparation policies according to Aysan and Lavell (2014). Thirdly, flexible skills and infrastructure (see Kapucu et al., 2010) situated in a broad network of trusted information sources facilitate adaptive information and communication capacities, which allow PR channels to deliver ”communal narratives that give the experience shared meaning and purpose” (Norris et al., 2007, p. 140). Similarly, critical reflection and problem-solving skills, creativity and flexibility, and political partnerships empowering community action as well as collective efficacy (read governance), can enhance communities’ competences to tackle and process disastrous incidents all together (see also Aysan & Lavell, 2014).
Referring to ’collaborative emergency management’ and taking a network-specific approach, Kapucu (2008) sought to identify factors explaining the effectiveness of preparatory coordination efforts. He similarly describes CM as multi-actor cooperation between government, non-profit and private organ- isations as well as individual citizens (see Bressers & Rosenbaum, 2003; Norris et al., 2007; Tierney, 2012). Kapucu (2008, p. 244) then contemplates that, in times of growing strains on official response organisations, cooperative crisis preparations ”can lead to strengthened organisational relationships that improve effectiveness”. Furthermore, he argues that an increasing need for coordination between a growing number of actors, the emergence of progressively decentralised public-service networks and mutual learning from experiences encourage crisis partners to share information as well as capital. Underlining his argument, he points to the observation that U.S. authorities which experienced catastrophic events were in general more inclined towards disaster governance through flexible crisis networks (Tierney, Lindell and Perry, 2001; as cited in Kapucu, 2008). Consequently, adapting or improving mutual IT systems, creating trust among actors as well as combining their resources can result in more resilient communities, overall, and improve public preparedness through organisational learning, in particular.
When Kapucu et al. (2010) dove deeper into the theory on possible benefits of disaster governance, they found that emergency managers can increase interoperability between crisis partners by (1) integrating
4 incident command structures (technical systems), and (2) coordinating decision-making processes (operational practices). On the one hand, technical integration can improve the frequency and quality of shared information. On the other hand, trust building, consensus reaching, team spirit, mutual understanding and common terminologies can harmonise partner interactions. According to the authors, network governance enhances these competences due to more frequent partner interactions stimulating organisational learning processes. Again these findings are in concordance with general network theory (Jones et al., 1997; Provan & Miward, 2001), and findings from environmental (Bressers & Rosenbaum, 2003) and other disaster governance studies (Aysan & Lavell, 2014).
Crisis preparation & mitigation as a public service delivery
Figure 2.1: Conceptualisation of network performance according to Provan & Milward (2001)
Evidently, modern CM can best be described as a community service delivery through semi-hierarchical, multi-level, and multi-actor cooperation networks under public-sector leadership (Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014), which relies heavily on the preparation of a sub-set of contingent capacities prior to disasters (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010). Accordingly, the seminal evaluation framework by Provan and Miward (2001) allows us to conceptualise performance of disaster governance efforts across three levels of outcomes (see figure 2.1). CM networks can be said to first and foremost serve (1) community-level goals such as changes in the incidence of the problem, aggregate indicators of well-being, social capital as well as decreasing costs to the community (Provan & Miward, 2001). However, they can only accomplish these by harnessing (2) network-level benefits such as increasing the range of services as well as their integration, increas- ing network participation (including citizens in our case), strengthening organisational relationships, creating stronger commitment to network goals by member organisations, and eliminating duplicate services. Furthermore, agents will initially join the network only, if they can justify membership towards their principal. That is the case, if the network serves (3) organisational-level interests including agency survival, resource acquisition, cost minimisation for services and their delivery, or by providing access to distinct types of services. Even though our results will focus on network-level goals only, this framework incentivises the streamlining of future research findings into a coherent scientific approach.
5 Policy effectiveness at the network level of CM C o m m u n i t y - l e v e l
g o a l s N e t w o r k - l e v e l
g o a l s O r g a n i s g a o t a i o l s n a l - l e v e l
Figure 2.2: Policy-making as crisis preparation according to Stolk et al. (2011)
With ”the transformation of outputs into disaster risk reduction outcomes” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.40), frequently overlooked in practical disaster governance efforts, and under-appreciated in CM literature (Gall et al., 2014) in general, Stolk et al. (2011) offer a conceptual solution. They argue that policy-making and capacity building (e.g. the establishment of a NA) along more prominent aspects such as training and exercises, raising community awareness (see Norris et al., 2007), or preparing civil-military cooperation, form ’preparatory tasks’ of CM (see figure 2.2). Capacity building through policy instruments (see also Aysan & Lavell, 2014) is consequently conceptualised to determine, in part, improvements in the provision of tactical-operational ’supporting tasks’ indispensable to crisis mitigation efforts. These include the supply of services and logistics (see Tierney, 2012), the coordination of mutual efforts (see Kapucu, 2008), information management, and sense-making (see Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu et al., 2010). Here we point to the fact that Stolk et al.’s (2011) list of ’supportive’ CM capacities strongly resembles our findings on network-level goals (Provan & Miward, 2001) derived from recent disaster governance literature (see right margin of figure 2.2). Nonetheless, both should be viewed as non-interchangeable categories, as Stolk et al. (2011) focussed on short-term tactical-operational aspects of CM, whereas other literature focussed on strategic-administrative aspects of disaster governance. In other words, network governance and related administrative policy processes can be viewed as strategic preparatory CM tasks enhancing a network’s supportive capacities to deliver crisis mitigation operations during emergency situations. According to Kapucu et al. (2010) as well as Aysan and Lavell (2014) we can further distinguish between inter-organisational and technical ’supportive capacities’ of disaster governance.
6 2.2 Policy-making in the CIT framework
Figure 2.3: Relevant policy inputs according to Bressers & De Boer (2011) and Bressers et al. (2016)
Contextual Interaction Theory allows us to embed the above conceptualisation in a wider body of literature on policy implementation processes. The theory is aimed at explaining policy formulation and implementation processes in terms of dynamic learning over time based on Bandura’s (1986; as cited in Bressers & De Boer, 2011) Social Cognitive Learning theory. It views policy-making as a process moving from initiation to outcomes via actor interactions in a policy arena. Furthermore, CIT categorises all inputs prior to an instrument’s initiation as external factors impacting on policy outcomes directly, as well as indirectly via the three central actor characteristics motivation, cognitions and resources (see figure 2.3) (Bressers, 2004; Bressers & De Boer, 2011; Bressers et al., 2016). Conflicting actor interests, risk perceptions and divergent power positions are often perceived as hindrances to the effective implementation of disaster governance policies, too (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20). And with disaster governance ”predominantly perceived in terms of outputs and normative aspects of governance (policies and laws, financing, institutional structures, decentralization, and platforms), rather than as a complex web of context specific processes and interactions of various aspects, institutions and actors” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.8), the CIT framework presents an intriguing case of applicability to the research focus of our study, as it allows us to place our findings in ”an integral analysis of [the] specific [...] local [context].” Importantly, we limit our research to the direct effects of a negotiated agreement on strategic CM capacities within its wider legal and institutional contexts. We will therefore refrain from correlating the effects of contextual inputs on the three actor characteristics, as this would bereave the theory of its essence - its simplicity in explaining processes from policy formulation towards policy outcomes.
7 Earlier policy decisions as drivers for institutionalisation
Figure 2.4: Ostrom’s IAD modell according to Cole (2016)
As a starting point, the framework assumes that policy effectiveness can be explained by a project’s geographic circumstances in terms of the distance between actors and other local circumstances. Simultaneously, it considers each initiation of a policy instrument a specific context variable, too. This is in line with Aysan & Lavell’s (2014, p.19) argument that case-specific administrative frameworks for issuing policies need to be considered when studying disaster governance efforts because ”policies and laws capture the essence of the ways that national and local governments understand and prioritize disaster and disaster risk matters”. Hence, CM policies need first and foremost be regarded in the context of earlier policy decisions, which determine ”which actors participate to what extent and with what legal resources and expectations” (Bressers & De Boer, 2011, p. 12). According to Elinor Ostrom (Cole, 2016, p. 16), such actor positions are to a large extent determined by previous legislation (see figure 2.4). In other words, actors in an arena can be said to operate within rule structures determined by their legitimised societal roles. We, too, believe that legal structures of administrative institutionalisation in a field of government represent its organic growth in societies over time, with CM originating from efforts to protect civil society from the hazards of warfare (Mayor of Gronau, 2011; Aysan & Lavell, 2014). Cole (2016) explains how relevant legal documents formulate official positions which may be held by eligible actors according to boundary rules. For each position, choice rules ”prescribe actions actors in positions must, must not, or may take in various circumstances” (Cole, 2016, p. 16), while aggregation rules determine procedures by which decisions may be taken (either alone or in aggregation). Furthermore, information rules stipulate obligations, permissions, or prohibitions for the flow of information from and towards certain positions. Lastly, scope rules ”delimit the range of possible outcomes” (Cole, 2016, p. 16), while pay-off rules reward or sanction certain actions and outcomes. All in all, this methodology allows researchers to grasp the extent of and qualitatively compare different institutional arenas. According to Aysan and Lavell (2014) understanding such formal institutions is crucial to delivering effective disaster governance policies.
8 Network qualities as structural-context variables Aysan and Lavell (2014, p.14) furthermore argue that the ”[organisational] basis for the implementation of disaster risk management,” carries important implications for how policies take shape and are im- plemented, too, which is especially true for ”[...] practitioner networks” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20). Such governance networks are incorporated into the CIT framework as structural contexts (Bressers & De Boer, 2011). According to the authors, these can best be described in terms of multi-level, multi-actor environments (see Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012, Aysan & Lavell, 2014, Gall et al., 2014) dealing with a multiplicity of issue perceptions and beliefs by deploying diverse strategies and instruments distributing responsibilities as well as relevant resources flexibly (see Bressers et al., 2016). This conceptualisation strongly mirrors findings from disaster governance apparently, with Tierney (2012) defining CM networks in terms of levels and scales, participating entities, and activities. Whereas Bressers and De Boer (2011) identified five structural governance dimensions, namely (1) levels & scales, (2) networks & actors, (3) perspectives & goals, (4) strategies & instruments, and (5) responsibilities & resources (see also Bressers et al., 2016), however, their latter three dimensions together strongly resemble Tierney’s (2012) third aspect of activities.
When the authors researched possible determinants of effective environmental policies, they identified four quality criteria, namely (1) extent, (2) coherence, (3) flexibility, and (4) intensity which each relate to all governance dimensions simultaneously (see Bressers and Kuks, 2004; De Boer & Bressers, 2011; Kuks et al., 2012; Bressers et al., 2013, 2015; as cited in Bressers et al., 2016, p. 54). These can again be compared to similar research findings on disaster governance using slightly different terminology, but conveying similar notions of meaning, namely complexity, integration, variability, and comprehensive- ness as discussed previously. We will shortly discuss these similarities and how they relate to each other.
According to Bressers et al. (2016, p. 16) the extent criterion ”refers to the completeness of the regime,” as characterised by the number of regulated target groups and involved implementers. Conversely, Bressers and De Boer (2011) and Bressers et al. (2016) identified complexity (Norris et al., 2007; Ka- pucu, 2008) as the root cause of extent governance regimes in environmental policy studies. As ”a lack of technical capacity or access to resources can hinder disaster risk reduction planning at the local level”, extensive disaster governance regimes are widely argued to enhance representativeness, particularly in local settings (Gall et al., 2014), as well as available resources (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.21). Simultaneously, clearly assigned roles and responsibilities help safeguard accountability within complex governance structures (Aysan & Lavell, 2014), which is reflected in the GAT, too.
Furthermore, coherence describes the degree to which various levels & scales, networks & actors, perspectives & goals, strategies & instruments as well as responsibilities & resources reinforce rather than obstruct each other (Bressers & De Boer, 2011; Bressers et al., 2016). In their view coherent large-extent regimes outperform more fragmented ones of the same scope, as stronger fragmentation
9 allegedly facilitates divergent actor goals, higher uncertainty as well as more power stalemates and inhibits trust (see also Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014). Whereas Kapucu et al. (2010), Aysan and Lavell (2014) and Srikandini et al. (2018) refer to the term ’integration’, however, Bressers and De Boer (2011, p. 16) argue that it ”implicitly or explicitly includes an increase in the domain of the regime”. For this, they advocate the term ’coherence’ to ensure conceptual clarity. The need for coherence in large-extent regimes becomes apparent, when inspecting disaster gover- nance efforts in developing countries where quantitative network growth hampered performance rather than promote it (Srikandini et al., 2018). Furthermore, as local disaster risks often arise from supra-local processes, ”it will require governance arrangements that allow synergy and negotiation between diverse interest groups”, if disaster governance efforts are to be successful Aysan and Lavell (2014, p.7).
Flexibility, or adaptiveness, as a structural determinant for the success of inclusive governance structures (see Bressers & De Boer, 2011; Bressers et al., 2016) has similarly been discussed in disaster governance literature, either as a community competence (Norris et al., 2007), or as a factor impacting on perfor- mance in decentralised coordination structures directly (Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014; Srikandini et al., 2018). The concept of flexibility is defined in terms of actors’ formal and informal liberties as well as related behavioural incentives, and is best be described as ”the degree to which the regime elements support and facilitate adaptive actions and strategies in as far as the integrated ambitions are served by this adaptiveness” (Bressers & De Boer, 2011, p. 29). Flexibility is a central concern for decentralisation efforts in modern CM as some cases have been demonstrated to ”exhibit a tendency for the state to retain central power and marginalise non-state actors,” (Srikandini et al., 2018, p.187) (see also Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.21; Artiningsih et al., 2016). Moreover, organisational learning and local capacity building often touted as crucial advantages of adaptive disaster governance regimes (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014). While the pooling of responsibilities and resources as an underlying process in complex networks has been widely recognised as an opportunity (Bressers & De Boer, 2011), however, it has conversely been found to bear negative implications for transparency and accountability in disaster governance settings, with few suitable instruments available (Aysan & Lavell, 2014). This view is, again, reflected in the GAT. Concerning these issues, the extent of social capital as well as the degree and equality of economic development (see Norris et al., 2007) are regarded safeguards to the successful implementation of decentralisation policies (Olum, 2014, as cited in Aysan & Lavell, 2014) in regimes that allow mem- ber organisation to execute their own responsibilities and develop individual capacities autonomously (Bressers et al., 2016). In other words, while the devolution of power has been touted as a driver of accountable government action (Ahrens & Rudolph, 2006; Aysan & Lavell, 2014; Gall et al., 2014), transparency needs to be acknowledged as a constraint on flexibility in disaster governance.
Lastly, it is debatable whether disaster governance literature has considered intensity as a structural
10 determinant of regime performance. We argue, however, that Tierney’s (2012) and Aysan & Lavell’s (2014) remarks on comprehensive disaster governance regimes carry similar notions to Bressers & De Boer’s (2011, p.30) definition, namely ”[the] degree to which the regime elements urge changes in the status quo or in current developments”. Looking in from a CM perspective, we argue that coordination systems can only be comprehensive, if strong cooperation between crisis partners and a mutual drive for improvements bring forward ambitious goals for future preparation efforts (learning from experiences) (Gall et al., 2014). Aysan and Lavell (2014), in turn, claim that ambitious and far-reaching goals need to be facilitated with ”dedicated and adequate resources” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.18) at the local level to promote legitimacy, effective outcomes and allocative efficiency (see also Gall et al., 2014). Again, such considerations are represented in the GAT.
The above demonstrates that research on the underlying organisational causes of effective crisis miti- gation efforts have significant conceptual overlap with the CIT frameworks definition of governance quality. Flexibility and intensity are desirable network qualities in case change and resource development are desired when preparing and implementing mitigatory measures (see Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012). Extensive and coherent network regimes, on the other hand, are most desirable, when policy implementers wish to stabilise a situation (Bressers et al., 2016). This is often the case during and after crises situations (see Norris et al., 2007; Stolk et al., 2011; Tierney, 2012). As a result, we believe the Governance Assessment Tool (GAT) derived from sustainability management research (see appendix A) (Bressers et al., 2016), represents a useful measurement tool for determining the quality of Gronau’s local CM networks.
2.3 Variables of interest & their alleged relations Streamlining the three models of Provan and Miward (2001), Stolk et al. (2011), Bressers and De Boer (2011), and Bressers et al. (2016) into a single theoretical framework on the role of policy-making in disaster governance, we achieve a coherent picture of our conceptualisation (see table 2.1). With respect to our central research question, we are interested in a multitude of variables. Sub-question 1 establishes the institutional context of local CM efforts at the municipality of Gronau, including policy-internal goals, formal actor positions and their attributed legal powers, responsibilities, and formalised resource dispositions according to Cole’s (2016) substantiation of Ostrom’s IAD framework.
Secondly, at the network level, the four network criteria extent, flexibility, coherence, and intensity serve as indicators for the quality of the local governance regime. Concerning the extent-row in the GAT (appendix A), it is desirable for a diversity of government institutions and private entities be involved as well as their various problem perceptions be considered in decision-making processes. Furthermore, application of multiple policy instruments as well as clearly assigned responsibilities facilitated by sufficient resources are desirable for producing effective policy outcomes in terms of capacity, resources, and representation.
11 INPUTS Stolk et al. (2011) OUTPUTS
Preparatory CM tasks: 3 Supportive CM tasks: Operative CM tasks: Inter-organisational: - policy-making - pocure/ maintain/ warehousing - crisis mitigation (on-site) - resource development/acquisition (services & logistics) - awareness raising - doctrine/procedure development - search & rescue - social capital - evaluation - training & exercises - security/law enforcement - interoperability (consensus reaching, - prepare civil-military coop. - evacuation & shelter team spirit, mutual understanding, org. learning & relationships, trust) - public relations
2 )
6 Technical: - health services 1 Structural (network)
0 - information management 2
context:
, - after care 1
1 Specific
0 1
- Extent context:
2
( .
l - Coherence - negotiated
a Actor arena Policy Effectiveness
agreement
t - Flexibility e
- Intensity - specific case s
r circumstances
e s
s ...of 5 governance Organisational-level Network-level Community-level
e r 12 dimensions goals: goals:
B goals:
- range of services - agency survival - changes in problem incidence - service integration - aggr. indicators well-being - resource acquisition - network participation - public social capital - cost minimisation - decreasing community costs - org. relationships - access to other services - member commitment
- eliminating duplicate services Provan & Milward (2002) [Disaster Risk Reduction] [Disaster Risk Preparation] [Disaster Risk Mitigation]
Aysan & Lavell (2014)
Table 2.1: Graphical representation of our theoretical framework incl. the three measurement moments Considering the coherence of the regime, constructive cooperation, and trust between the levels involved are favourable qualities of a CM network. This would be characterised by frequent interactions in institutionalised structures which facilitate synergistic problem perspectives and goal ambitions. As cooperative strategic planning resolves conflicts between instruments as well as competence struggles between actors (Bressers et al., 2016), we argue it facilitates coordination and organisational learning, and improves social capital as well as overall information management. The ability to move up and down different levels, for new actors to get involved in crisis preparation efforts, and to share social capital in the network (flexibility) represents the networks capacity to provide supportive CM tasks adaptive to the crisis situation at hand. Furthermore, optimisation of multiple goals in cooperative arrangements, combination and availability of multiple instruments, the ability to pool responsibilities and resources as well sharing social capital can be expected to facilitate efficiency in resource acquisition and continued organisational learning. Lastly, a strong drive by a certain level of government, organisation or actor (coalition) towards more ambitious goals can be expected to produce policy innovation and improve crisis preparation efforts. This urge should be reflected in the instruments deployed in that they incentivise and allocate sufficient resources to such measures (see again Appendix A). That environmental negotiated agreements were found to stimulate broad sector representation, mutual understanding, collaboration between government and target groups, resource efficiency through allocation of obligations and phasing in time as well as more ambitious goals, points to the potential of voluntary CM regulation, too.
Sub-question 3, then, deals with the question whether or not a negotiated agreement facilitates con- tingent inter-organisational and technical supportive tasks of CM according to disaster governance literature. On the one hand, we would expect a covenant between the crisis partner organisations to contribute positively to the development and availability of network resources (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Stolk et al., 2011), the efficient acquisition of resources (Provan & Miward, 2001; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012), the development of social capital (Norris et al., 2007), and improvements to inter-organisational relations (or trust) (Provan & Miward, 2001; Norris et al., 2007), too. Furthermore, we argue that the partners’ interoperability in terms of consensus reaching, team spirit, mutual understanding (shared common language) (Kapucu et al., 2010; Stolk et al., 2011), and organisational learning (Norris et al., 2007; Tierney, 2012) as well as the broader community’s competence in terms of citizen participation (Norris et al., 2007) can be furthered by such a network-level agreement. On the other hand, we expect the agreement to improve the quality of as well as the frequency with which information is shared among the partners (Kapucu, 2008; Stolk et al., 2011) as well as the network’s overall ability to process information (Kapucu et al., 2010; Stolk et al., 2011). Simultaneously, governance instruments such as our agreement could feasibly increase the number of trusted information sources available in the network (Norris et al., 2007) through improving social capital, as well as contributing to the overall trust in and accessibility to already existing information sources (Kapucu et al., 2010).
13 CHAPTER 3
METHOD
The aim of our case study is to transfer knowledge from environmental policy research to a CM context and explore arguments in favour or against the use of governance instruments during crisis preparation. In doing so, we will provide analysis of the case-specific circumstances and network conditions under which such a policy tool is applied, before measuring the agreement’s expected performance. Employing a qualitative research design, we aim to provide results meaningful in the context at hand. Due to the limited amount of available observations in the local CM context of the municipality of Gronau, our results should not be over-generalised. In other words, we base our findings on a simple, but valid, sample of public as well as private organisation representatives with strategic-level insights involved in the local preparations for catastrophic events.
Meanwhile, whether or not our findings indicate the validity of the CIT framework in a CM context, will be elaborated further in the discussion part of this thesis, too. As our methodology is thoroughly grounded in an extensive body of literature, however, we believe our overall design to be reliable and internally consistent in a qualitative field setting. Table 3.1 at the end of this chapter summarises our operationalisation according to theory across the three sub-questions.
3.1 Strategy & Design Employing a qualitative research design moving from descriptive content analysis towards a measure of covenant performance, we sought to involve our participants and their field insights to the greatest extent possible in order to guarantee for the validity of our findings. A total of six organisations were involved in the process of the agreement, including the municipality’s network manager, Gronau’s fire brigade (FB), a private plant fire brigade, the local police representation, the local Red Cross Federation’s representation, and the local division of the German Federal Technical Relief Organisation (THW). We reached out to this sample via the municipality’s network to ensure sustained interest and participation in our project for the period of six months. We share the network manager’s sentiment that this sample reflects Gronau’s day-to-day CM business fairly well, but were surprised to see less institutionalised actor coalitions, e.g. health and critical infrastructure sectors, not represented at the workshop. We will elaborate further on this topic in the results section for sub-question 2. Meanwhile, our study begins with a thorough analysis of relevant legal documents, before a subsequent disaster governance workshop involving these correspondent partner organisations rounded off our network analysis. Our empirical design concludes with an ex-ante evaluation of the agreement’s contributions to current CM capacities.
14 Institutional context analysis Answering the first sub-question, we provide legal-institutional analysis of local CM organisation at the municipality in a first of its kind and give a thorough description of the agreement’s implementation context in terms of the CIT framework. That is, we first describe policy-specific context variables in terms of legal operational rules by analysing three relevant laws reaching back to the late 1960s, when the relevance of military protection slowly degraded and CM in Germany was reorganised to provide civil protection from man-made and natural disasters. In doing so, we gain insights into the organisations’ legal decision-making context and delineate an institutional arena according to Ostrom’s IAD framework. Hence, the legal-institutional arena forms the unit of analysis for this sub-question, while relevant legal documents are our units of observation. It is important to note at this point, that our focus lays on the strategic-administrative (crisis preparation) decision-making context, rather than the operational- tactical (crisis mitigation) decision-making context of local disaster mitigation efforts in Germany. Thus, we base our analysis on relevant laws regulating strategic-level organisation of CM and leave more specific regulations on operational best practices aside.
Cooperative context analysis While sub-question 1, therefore, relies on law document analysis for the specific context measurement, sub-question 2 indicates qualitative network analysis as a suitable tool. We reformulated the Governance Assessment Tool to accommodate the CM context at hand by slightly altering the items created by Bressers et al. (2016). These 35 items (see appendix A) were answered by involving insights from strategic-level employees in a field research setting at two separate moments, namely during (1) data gathering as well as preceding (2) data validation. This was done to substantiate our previous desk research measurements, with quantification of the GAT hardly possible (Bressers et al., 2016). During the workshop, the nine strategic-level employees participating in the drafting of the agree- ment, moreover provided us with valuable empirical data for our network analysis. With limited time for our workshop, we decided to let participants answer 14 items, which could hardly be answered by desk research. The remaining 21 items were subsequently answered by careful review of related disaster governance literature in combination with relevant legal documents as well as the transcript of discussions during the workshop. Our units of analysis for this sub-question, therefore, were the local partner organisations within their network structure. Meanwhile, our units of observation were, first, legal documents including relevant laws and a decree by the mayor of Gronau regulating local crisis preparation efforts, and, secondly, strategic-level employees representing their organisations in a cooperative workshop.
Covenant performance in CM settings Subsequently, we brought forward a new methodology for measuring network-level outcomes during crisis preparation efforts for sub-question 3 (see Gall et al., 2014). Put differently, our analysis focusses on the contributions of a negotiated agreement to future disaster mitigation efforts in terms of dynamic inter-organisational and technical support tasks of CM. Similar to sub-question 2, our results are based
15 on observations provided by the nine strategic-level employees involved in the creation of the agreement. More specifically, we set out to quantitatively measure the agreement’s effects on inter-organisational crisis mitigation capacities in terms of resource availability (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Stolk et al., 2011), the diversity of resources available in the network (Jones et al., 1997; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012) as well as social capital in terms of formal and informal relations (Norris et al., 2007). Further possible effects include increased interoperability in terms of consensus reaching, team spirit and mutual understanding through shared common language (Kapucu et al., 2010; Stolk et al., 2011), organisational learning (Norris et al., 2007; Tierney, 2012), and community competence (Norris et al., 2007). Effects on technical tasks include information sharing frequency and quality (Kapucu et al., 2010), the amount of information sources, information management skills in the network (Kapucu, 2008) as well as the number of reliable information sources and trust in those (Norris et al., 2007). Employing a survey with participation limited to the participants of the workshop as well as the agreement, therefore, provided us with meaningful statistical data to answer sub-question 3. We need to mention, however, that citizens were excluded from participating on practical grounds. In this light, we excluded measures on citizen participation (Norris et al., 2007) as a possible outcome of the agreement. It should be noted that it was neither our aim to establish statistical correlation, nor causality, but rather to qualitatively explain the agreement’s functioning in the administrative CM context at hand.
3.2 Data collection methods & Data analysis Law & Document analysis In order to measure the relevant policy-specific context according to Bressers and De Boer (2011) we analysed three relevant laws, namely (1) the federal ’Statute on the Expansion of Disaster Control’ (Gesetz uber¨ die Erweiterung des Katastrophenschutzes) from 1968 which initiated the transformation from military towards civil protection as well as two laws enacted by the federal Land of North-Rhine Westphalia, namely (2) the ’Law on Fire Safety and Assistance’ (Gesetz uber¨ den Feuerschutz und die Hilfeleistung - FSHG) from 1998 and the most recent (3) ’Law on Fire Protection, Assistance and Disaster Control’ (Gesetz uber¨ den Brandschutz, die Hilfeleistung und den Katastrophenschutz - BHKG) from 2015. These legal provisions shaping CM efforts at the municipality of Gronau were coded according Ostrom’s operational rules in a closed coding scheme, with prefixes signifying the type of rule an article formulated as well as an abbreviation of the organisation the article relates to. The coded docu- ments as well as the resulting coding schemes are archived and can be accessed at DANS (https:// dataverse.nl/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=hdl:10411/MJMLW3).
Measuring our structural network context variables according to (Bressers et al., 2016), document analysis played a significant role, too. Both, the most recent state regulation (BHKG) as well as the local disaster management plan (Sonderschutzplan) issued in the form of a decree by the mayor of Gronau in her/his role as the responsible municipal clerk, allowed us to analyse 21 of the overall 36 items of the GAT. The measurement results can be found in Appendix B, with items answered through literature review and
16 the transcript of the workshop (see following section) marked with an ’a’-suffix behind their numbering.
Workshop Poll Furthermore, we organised a crisis cooperation workshop aimed at establishing a negotiated agreement between the partners. 9 strategic-level employees representing 7 organisations in the network provided valuable insights into the circumstances of local CM cooperation. In order to gather and present the data immediately during the workshop, we created an online poll (www.polleverywhere.com) with participants able to answer instantly using their mobile phones. The 14 items answered through this poll, are indicated by a ’b’-suffix behind their numbering (again see appendix B). As we recorded the live poll discussions between the partners, we were able provide a detailed transcript which helped answer the remaining items as laid out above. The overall results on the GAT (including the workshop poll as laid out beneath) were distributed to all workshop participants for verification. As we have not received any calls for improvements or alterations, we believe the results reflect the situation well. The transcript can be found in the same DANS database as the coding schemes.
Survey Lastly, our workshop participants were requested to provide their views on the possible contributions of the negotiated agreement to the local CM cooperation network as a means of answering sub-question 3. Due to our limited time frame, we decided to formulate questions about which future benefits the participants expect, rather than what they can already observe. From a practical point-of-view, this method will be easily adaptable for future policy instrument evaluations in CM including future agreements at the municipality of Gronau or elsewhere. The survey was conducted with the aid of Qualtrics’ online survey tool, distributing personalised access links to track progress of the number of respondents. It was administered between December 3, 2018, - 10 days after the agreement had been signed - and January 11, 2019 (39 days). This resulted in a response rate of 88%. This means that not all of the 9 workshop participants (n = 8) answered the survey, but at least one representative per organisation did. In line with our qualitative design, we will analyse the survey results in terms of answers categories’ frequencies and mean score per item. The corresponding figures and tables were generated using the LibreOffice Calc software. The survey consists of 16 items covering operational and technical dimensions according to (Kapucu et al., 2010). This includes questions on resource development (items 1 & 2), efficiency in resource acquisition (item 3), development of social capital (items 4 & 5), indicators of community competence (item 6), mutual understanding (item 7), shared common language (item 8) and organisational learning capacities (items 9 & 10), as well as the frequency (item 11) and quality (item 12) of information sharing, the quantity of information sources (item 13), overall network ability to process information (item 14), and trust and quantity of trusted information sources (items 15 & 16), respectively. A complete list of survey items can be found in appendix C. Respondents were asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with these 16 statements on a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from ’strongly disagree’ to ’strongly agree’ with ’undecided’ as the middle value.
17 As we believe our small sample of local core partners reflects fundamental network structures in other German localities, the survey results provide an interesting, though maybe incomplete, preliminary and network-focussed picture of the possible functioning of NAs in CM settings as expected by strategic employees. Due the limited number of observations, however, their generalisability should be viewed critically and only indicative in kind. Regarding questions as to why exactly the agreement does (not) work in the context of actor interactions in Gronau’s local CM arena, the application of CIT’s likelihood of (adequate) implementation models based on the three central actor characteristics could substantiate our survey findings, and provide a more detailed and process-oriented picture of subsequent interaction processes. Whereas we considered this step in the preparation of this research, too, we decided against the application of these models for reasons of time and conceptual clarity.
18 Research question Variables Method Documents/Items Indicators
•”Gesetz uber¨ die Erweiterung Specific context: des Katastrophenschutzes” •Population size 1. How has the organisation of local crisis management Specific context: •”Gesetz uber¨ den Feuerschutz been institutionalised in Germany and North •Municipal area •geographic circumstances •Law document analysis und die Hilfeleistung” Rhine-Westphalia in the past? •Distance between •operational rules •”Gesetz uber¨ den Brandschutz, partners die Hilfeleistung und den •Ostrom’s 7 IAD rules (Cole, 2016) Katastrophenschutz”
Structural context: •local disaster management plan •Levels & Scales Structural context: (Sonderschutzplan) •Actors & Networks 2. How do cooperative crisis preparation efforts at the •extent •Workshop poll municipality of Gronau currently take shape within the •Problem perspectives •coherence •qual. Network analysis (GAT) •Workshop transcript local network of relevant crisis partners? & goal ambitions •flexibility •”Gesetz uber¨ den Brandschutz, •Strategies & Instruments •intensity die Hilfeleistung und den •Responsibilities Katastrophenschutz” & Resources
Operational crisis support tasks: 19 Survey item 1 Inter-organisational CM •resource availability Survey item 2 support tasks: •resource diversity Survey item 3 •resource development •efficiency of resource acquisition Survey item 4 •social capital •formal relations Survey item 5 •community competence •informal relations Survey item 6 •mutual understanding •self-sufficiency Survey item 7 3. To which extent does the negotiated agreement •common language •partner goal awareness between relevant local crisis management organisations Survey item 8 •shared terminologies contribute to crisis preparation efforts at the municipality •organisational learning •Online Survey Survey item 9 of Gronau as expected by strategic employees? •overall network ability Survey item 10 •planning ability
Technical crisis support tasks: Technical CM Survey item 11 •frequency information sharing support tasks: Survey item 12 •quality information sharing •information management Survey item 13 •quantity of sources Survey item 14 •network information skills Survey item 15&16 •trusted information sources
Table 3.1: Overview operationalisation CHAPTER 4
RESULTS
In the following chapter, we will present our results according to the methodology laid out before. To begin with, we will describe the evolution of the institutional decision-making context of (local) crisis management in Germany between 1986 and today before discussing the current geographical circumstances dictating the organisation of crisis management efforts at the municipality of Gronau. Subsequently, we will describe the covenant’s structural context with respect to network qualities. Concluding this section, we will present the results of our survey about the agreement’s expected performance. We will provide conclusions for each sub-question at the end of the respective sections. 4.1 Geo-Legal circumstances of CM in Gronau For each law, we will discuss the most important developments concerning CM and its operative organisations. We will subsequently describe the positions of institutionalised actors, moving from operational CM actors towards their overarching local administrative contexts and describe private sector obligations. It should be noted that the laws analysed heavily rely on previous legal provisions underlying German state organisation. This is especially true with respect to position and boundary rules relative to existing institutions (e.g. ’the Lander’,¨ ’the Bund’, ’the municipalities’, etc.). German Disaster Control before German unification (1968) The Statute on the Expansion of Disaster Control (1968) reformed the foundations for civil protection with §63 of the IV. Geneva Convention protecting civilians from ”individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations [...] from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not” in times of war confining the law’s disaster control mandate to matters of internal security (§3). Traditional military agencies including branches of fire protection, rescue and maintenance, hazmat units, medical services, psycho-social care, telecommunications as well as other (private) organisations engaged in furthering civil self-protection (§4, para. 1), were meant to be reinforced, equipped and trained by federal government institutions (§5, para. 1) in order to protect civilian from threats of public emergencies and weapons of attack (§1, para. 1 & 2), with new institutions to be erected and trained if existing capacities would prove insufficient (§1, para. 3). To that end, their status was equalled to that of voluntary fire fighters (§9, para. 1) protecting them from employment disadvantages due to their involvement in CM (§9, para. 2), while volunteers’ rights to enrol in such organisations for limited or unlimited time (§8, para. 1) and states’ ability to conscript temporary services (§8, para. 4) emphasised its remaining partial military function at the time. Accordingly, the organisation of CM was heavily centralised with federal government determining strength and structure of disaster control at the state level and the latter likewise vis-a-vis` county ad-
20 ministration (§4, para. 2). The states were subsequently commissioned with maintaining (§5, para. 3) and distributing federal equipment to local operational organisation (§5, para. 2) via their underlying administrative bodies (§5, para. 1), which ought to be harmonised and standardised (§5, para. 2). In a similar vein, the former paramilitary organisations of aerial defence emergency service and the ’Selbstschutz’ - traditionally coordinating supra-regional operations of FBs, civil aid organisations and the military - were merged into the Federal Association for Self-Protection (’Bundesverband fur¨ den Selbstschutz’) incorporating federal, state and communal head organisations under the MoI’s lead (§11, para. 1) to (1) educate civilians on threats from arms of offence and respective self-protection, (2) assist local and county governments in briefing the population, and (3) support administrations and businesses with informing and training their employees (§11, para. 2). While the law regulated the position of its director directly (§11, para. 4), the MoI received extensive authorities with respect to its locality and internal organisation (§11, para. 3). In line with the overall motivation to decentralise civilian disaster control efforts in harmony with federal defensive interests at the time, however, their localised units and equipment ought to be integrated as county-level capacities, too (§11).
Besides provisions on private relief organisation, the statute merely included possible limitations to civilians’ individual liberties, freedom of movement and sanctities of the home (§12, para. 1 & 3) in terms of private actors. Such competences included restraining citizens to their current locality or move them temporarily according to §80a of the German Basic Law (§12, para. 2), with federal legislative organs able to request the annulment of such measures (§12, para. 1). Administrative organisation between 1968 & 1998 Indicative of CM capacities’ importance to defensive disaster relief efforts before 1998, all actions taken by lower government levels in accordance with the statute were considered executions on federal com- mission (§2, para.1), with municipal authorities merely responsible for facilitating civilian self-protection capacities, including businesses and administrations (§10, para. 1). To that end, they could utilise disaster control facilities including the Federal Agency for Self-Protection (§10, para. 2), issue directives regarding self-protective behaviour during cases of defence (§10, para. 5), and ought to organise adequate civilian shelter capacities for displaced citizens (§12, para. 4), with superior county administrations instructed to support them (§10, para. 4) and state governments allowed to order the consolidation of such efforts in inter-communal partnerships (§10, para. 1 & 3). In contrast to local governments, however, county authorities received a pivotal role in organisation and coordination of disaster response capacities. This included supervising the composition, training and equipment of local CM organisations as well as their subsequent deployment for civilian (§7, para. 1) or military (§7, para. 2) relief operations under the lead of their top administrator (’Landrat’)(§2, para. 1). Concordantly, county governments ought to erect comprehensive task forces to assist them with these tasks (§7, para. 3) and had to burden the costs of any operations during times of piece (§14, para. 3).
With federal government providing equipment and coordinating as well as financing defensive CM
21 efforts (§14, para. 1) under the lead of the federal Minister of the Interior (MoI) (§2, para. 2), state authorities fulfilled a rather intermediary role in this framework. Nonetheless, they ought to maintain training posts to facilitate regional and professional integration (§6), provide civilian shelter capacities (§12, para. 4), and execute delegated fiscal competences (§14, para. 2), while they were allowed to order the consolidation of county capacities under the lead of a single top administrator or a leading municipality (§7, para. 4). Meanwhile, the federal Minister of the Interior (MoI) was empowered to issue administrative provi- sions with the approval of upper house of parliament (’Bundesrat’)(§2, para. 3) to fulfil his tasks, and ought to facilitate adequate and standardised personnel schooling by organising central training posts (§6). Alternatively, s/he could fully or partially transfer these competences to the newly established Federal Office for Civil Protection (’Bundesamt fur¨ Bevolkerungsschutz’¨ )(§2, para. 2; §11, para. 1). In line with this distribution of tasks, the MoI together with the Defence Minister, moreover, ought to weigh military and civilian disaster control interests in terms of conscripted service quotas (§8, para. 2). Institutional decision-making context until 1998 Overall, the statute tried to accommodate interests of civilian and defensive CM in a framework of 82 operational rules relying heavily on existing government structures - as indicated by the inclusion of only 7 boundary rules. While civilian disaster control was therefore still in its institutional infancy, the statute was a first step in institutionalising the role of private relief organisation (15 rules of which 3 boundary, 4 choice & 4 pay-off rules). Further indication of the framework’s ambiguity, federal authorities were afforded extensive powers (19 rules including 3 positions, and 6 choice rules) with respect to defensive disaster control, whereas county administrations responsible for civilian relief efforts were less regulated (13 rules including 1 position, and 5 choice rules). Their leading roles, meanwhile, are further underlined by respective financial obligations (4 pay-off rules). Conversely, other government levels, such as state (7 rules excluding any positions but including 5 choice rules) and municipal governments (8 rules including 1 position, and 5 choice rules) were mandated rather facilitative roles within this framework, while a fundamental part of the statute (14 rules including 2 position & 3 related boundary rules) focussed on the newly established intra-governmental Association for Self-Protection, to coordinate civilian and military disaster control efforts across all government levels. CM devolution after German unification (1998) After German unification, government strove to improve the demarcation between defensive and civilian disaster control with military CM remaining a federal competence based on the ’Law on civil protection and disaster assistance by the Bund’ (’Gesetz uber¨ den Zivilschutz und die Katastrophenhilfe des Bundes, ZSKG’) from 1997 and civilian relief devolved to the state level. This distinction followed an overall trend toward decentralisation to enhance effectiveness through community participation and accountability (Aysan & Lavell, 2014), and subsequently resulted in the ’Law on Fire Safety and Assistance’ (’Gesetz uber¨ den Feuerschutz und die Hilfeleistung’) issued by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1998. It ascribed CM competences to local fire brigades (FBs) (§9, para. 1), private relief agencies, and the police.
22 Positioned in a leading role, public municipal fire fighting agencies (§9, para. 2), such as professional FBs composed of full-time public servants (§10, para. 2) as well as voluntary, compulsory or youth brigades ought to fight hostile fires, support relief efforts during large-scale incidents or public emergencies (§1, para. 1), and assist emergency medical services (EMS) (§17) as well as neighbouring communities upon request by supra-local operation control rooms (§25, para. 5) free of charge (§25, para. 2). Whereas any full-time brigade chief was automatically put in charge of coexisting voluntary FBs (§11, para. 2) with the latter’s section commanders electing a spokesperson to represent their interests towards them (§11, para. 2), standalone voluntary FBs ought to be led by a brigade chief and up to two deputies of civil servant status for a tenure of 6 years among other boundary rules (§11, para. 1). They could accept, promote, and dismiss volunteers (§12, para. 1). Emphasising the reliance on voluntary units, these were afforded extensive information and pay-off rights including protection from employment disadvantages or compensation and reimbursement claims among others (§12) with local authorities bearing such costs but able to request their reimbursement in cases of a breach of duty (§12, para. 8). In case adequate local fire protection capacities did not materialise in these ways, municipalities could, with few exceptions (§14, para. 2), draft all citizens between the age of 18 and 60 to form compulsory FBs (§14, para. 1) to whom identical rights and duties applied (§14, para. 3). Defiance to such a conscription could be fined with up to DM 50.000 (§39, para. 1 & 2). This framework of public FBs was complemented by youth brigades, which were afforded equal status, but their deployment limited to tasks outside of danger areas (§12, para. 9). Overarching this system of FBs in North Rhine-Westphalia, charitable federations of Fire Brigades were tasked with servicing their members, nourishing camaraderie and tradition, promoting training as well as contributing to education on fire protection (§16).
Besides public FBs, plant brigades mandated and monitored by district administrations at sites encom- passing significant site-bound or group risks, were acknowledged as private fire fighting units (§15, para. 1), too. They were commissioned with on-site fire protection measures, the provision of fire security guards, employee education on prevention and self-help as well as on-site fire inspections under the supervision of their district council and reporting to their local authority (§15, para. 4), while similarly being obliged to provide off-site assistance under certain conditions (§25, para. 4). Concordantly, they ought to consist of full-time company employees to ensure sufficient site and production knowledge, and must resemble their public counterparts regarding structure, equipment as well as training (§15, para. 2), with neighbouring companies allowed to use shared facilities under strict conditions and the approval of their district council (§15, para. 3). Whereas companies generally had to burden any related costs, they could request compensation for off-site operations (§40, para. 8).
Moreover, county-approved private aid agencies, which declared their willingness, ought to assist with local (§18, para. 1) and supra-local operations (§25, para. 1 & 5) upon request as well as contribute to cit-
23 izen education, and advice on self-help (§18, para. 2). To these ends, they had to maintain operable units, and participate in exercises and educative events, with respective authorities monitoring them (§18, para. 3). During such relief efforts, exercises and trainings they were acting as administrative assistants (§18, para. 4) and, accordingly, their volunteers were afforded identical pay-off rights as FB volunteers (§12). Whereas they had to train and educate their staff autonomously (§23, para. 2), and burden any related costs themselves (§40, para. 7), county authorities bore any individual compensation costs (§20).
While the police was meant to provide executive and administrative assistance according to the state’s police law (’Polizeigesetz NRW’) and other relevant provisions (§29, para. 3), the aforementioned institu- tions were moreover obliged to assist defensive civil protection efforts (§1, para. 6) at the expense of federal government (§40, para. 10). Conversely, the German Federal Agency for Technical Relief (’THW’) ought to assist in supra-local emergencies upon request by a responsible authority (§25, para. 3), too.
Private actor obligations between 1998 & 2015 The new legislation furthermore introduced extensive obligation for private actors such as specific facility operators, event hosts and civilians. While §38 allowed for impediments on individual liberties, freedom of movement, and sanctities of the home in general, citizens were ascribed reporting duties (§35), too. During operations, units could instruct persons to leave the operation site (§27, para. 2) or order the removal of objects (§27, para. 3). Property owners were furthermore obliged to grant them access and condone (1) the installation of detection and alarm systems, (2) the utilisation of their equipment or water resources as well as (3) their evacuation and alterations to their property (§28) with municipalities reimbursing any respective damages (§36). Event hosts had to similarly inform municipalities of events with increased fire risks, to which the latter could instruct ordinances and public or private fire security guards with the right to order measures concerning fire protection and emergency escape routes (§7). Lastly, operators of facilities handling dangerous goods (§24), large amounts of chemicals (Seveso- II-facilities) (§24a) or waste from extractive industries (§24b) were imposed similar information and compliance duties, such as (1) implementing personnel or physical measures, (2) reporting hazardous interruptions, (3) maintaining dedicated abuse-resistant telecommunication lines or (4) (partially) partic- ipating in exercises and trainings at their own expense. Moreover, responsible authorities could oblige them to maintain proprietary operational alert and hazard control plans. In any case of non-compliance, civilians, event hosts and site operators could fined with up to DM 50.000 (§39, para. 1 & 2).
Administrative organisation between 1998 & 2015 Government administrations, on the other hand, were commissioned with facilitating and coordinating such CM capacities as well as administering fire protection measures according to construction regu- lations, with information processes required to comply with federal and state data protection rules in the absence of specific rules (§37, para. 2, 3 & 4). To these ends, the legislation introduced two new positions, namely fire officers (’Brandmeister’) and fire departments (’Brandschutzdienststelle’), respectively.
24 Local authorities were mandated extensive tasks within this framework. Firstly, they ought to provide sufficient quench water supplies (§1, para. 2; §41, para. 5 & 6) and maintain adequate fire brigades (§1, para. 1). The law incentivised municipalities to promote youth FBs (§9, para. 3) and erect professional brigades in coexistence with voluntary ones (§10, para. 1), with the latter obligatory for independent municipalities (IMs). In case such capacities proved insufficient, they needed to organise compulsory FBs (§14, para. 1), too. Furthermore, county seats of more than 20.000 inhabitants were obliged to employ full-time fire fighters as civil servants for permanently staffed fire stations, with district councils able to grant exceptions (§13, para. 1). Concerning their day-to-day operability, municipalities were instructed to create and regularly update operation schedules together with their FBs (§22, para. 1), provide basic and advanced training to their volunteers (§23, para. 1), and test their ability (§23, para. 3). With respect to the preparation of large-scale relief operations, local authorities needed to arrange emergency call and dispatch facilities to warrant the timely notification of operational units (§21, para. 2). These were allowed to record calls and ought to be connected to county-level operation control rooms. Secondly, they were instructed to appoint an officer-in-charge who received extensive coordina- tive powers regarding personnel and equipment (§26) as well as civilians in close proximity and their belongings (§27, para. 1), with civil disobedience punishable with up to DM 50.000 (§39, para. 2 & 3). Completing their preparatory obligations, municipalities must create and regularly revise external emergency plans for dangerous facilities (Seveso-II-companies) (§24a, para. 1 & 3), with clear provisions on their structure, relevant information (§24a, para. 2), and public participation procedures (§24a, para. 3 & 4) included.
During supra-local response efforts to large-scale incidents (§25, para. 5), however, such local capacities were subordinated to coordination measures of counties and IMs (§1, para. 3 & 5). To ensure adequate redundancy of local, county administrations had to organise advanced training and regular exercises of such coordinated efforts (§23, para. 1 & 3). In a similar vein, county fire officers and up to two deputies ought to supervise the organisation of voluntary and compulsory FBs, and were allowed to assume control over voluntary FBs’ relief operations (§34, para. 1). The law strongly regulated their appointment procedure and afforded them similar compensation rights to FB volunteers at the expense of county administrations (§34, para. 3). Concordantly, they were mandated the accreditation of private relief organisations (§18, para. 1) or could erect their own service units, if required (’Regieeinheiten’)(§19). For the orchestration of such supra-local efforts, counties and IMs had to create incident plans for dangerous sites (§22, para. 1), appoint permanent coordination groups and directors of operations (§22, para. 2), and maintain operation control rooms and other facilities, which were mandated extensive information processing rights (§1, para. 4). In case they took charge of large-scale operations by notifying respective local governments (§29, para. 4), they furthermore ought to install temporary mission control staffs, which were granted directive authorities vis-a-vis` underlying and other states’ administrations as well as federal units (§29, para. 1) and whose director commanded all units (§30, para. 1). However, they
25 remained bound to directives from superior technical authorities (§29, para. 2), and had to immediately inform their district council on the kind and extent of the incident as well as any measures taken (§33, para. 1). Lastly, they could erect temporary information offices possessing extraordinary data processing rights (§30, para. 2), or delegate such tasks to private relief organisations (§31, para. 1).
In addition to these tasks, local and county administrations’ were mandated significant risk prevention competences in their role as fire departments (§5) and respective information rights vis-a-vis` relevant public authorities (§37, para. 1). To that end, full-time FB personnel or delegated external fire engineers ought to execute inspections at facilities with increased risks of fire at least every 5 years (§6) at their owner’s expense (§41, para. 4). Moreover, fire departments could order temporary fire security guards (§7) and ought to create local fire protection contingency plans (§22, para. 1) as well as educate citizens on fire safety issues and potential self-help (§8). While generally speaking these tasks should be executed by local authorities, if the disposed of sufficient full-time FB personnel, counties were instructed to at least support them personnel-wise (§6, para. 2) or fulfil their role altogether, if that was not the case. Meanwhile, counties were additionally instructed to maintain integrated fire protection control rooms with redundant incident response capacities (§21, para. 1).
While state authorities and their underlying district councils were obliged to provide supra-local assis- tance upon request (§25, para. 1), too, they mainly fulfilled facilitative, supervisory, and administrative roles. These included (1) educating executive and staff personnel as well as conveying specialist knowl- edge at their ’Institute for Fire Services’ (§3), (2) the appointment of district fire officers and up to two deputies with identical rights and duties as their county counterparts (§34), and (3) issuing directives specifying administrative rules vis-a-vis` public and private CM actors (§43) in consideration with relevant head organisations (§44) as well as determining FB jurisdictions for supra-territorial infrastructure (§2) or hierarchical structures between equal county administrations (§33, para. 6), respectively.
Provisions on the administrative supervision and distribution of costs, moreover, reflected CM’s decen- tralised but hierarchical structure as well as its public sector lead. Generally speaking, higher authorities could arbitrarily (1) inquire about their subordinated administrations’ state of affairs with respect to their legal tasks and test their proficiency levels including (2) subsequent orders, (3) issue administrative directives with respect to the organisation of FBs and fire safety as well as preparatory CM capacities, and (4) assume their competences for the time of operations in case of non-compliance (§32), too. Indicative of the public sector’s leading position, on the other hand, its training facilities across all levels ought to be accessible to third parties upon refund (§23, para. 4) and administrative levels had to finance their allocated tasks independently (§§40, para. 1 & 2, 41, para. 1) including reciprocal compensations rights (§40, para. 3) as well as vis-a-vis` private entities causing such costs premeditatedly (§41, para. 2 & 3). Meanwhile, state government as the penultimately responsible institution (§4) ought to provide any supplementary financing regarding their central measures, equipment costs, compulsory
26 strategic trainings and education (§40, para. 4, 5 & 7), and fire protection measures unrelated to trainings (§40, para. 6). To that end, it was obliged to devote fire brigade tax revenues solely (§40, para. 9). Institutional decision-making context until 2015 With a total of 273 rules as opposed to 82 previously, the ’Law on Fire Safety and Assistance’ extended the institutional of CM significantly, with municipalities - 55 rules including 19 choice & 9 pay-off rules - and their local FBs (47 rules) allocated fundamental roles. Strikingly, the CM relied heavily on voluntary FB capacities, with almost 2/3 (24 of the 37) of all provisions on public FBs relating to voluntary ones, including 2 positions, 3 boundary rules, and 7 extensive pay-off rules. Moreover, 13 rules further underlined the significance of private relief organisations to CM, while the legislation similarly tried to harmonise relations with public actors traditionally unrelated to CM such as the police (6 rules). With respect to the administrative organisation of CM, county administrations retained their leading position in coordinating large-scale relief efforts (44 rules). Accordingly, the legislation introduced a new supervisory system of fire officers at county and state levels with the aim to harmonise local capacities (10 rules). The importance of risks produced by private facilities was similarly acknowledged, with 11 rules regulating plant FBs, 23 rules concerning three different types of hazardous facilities and 9 rules relating to event safety. This is in line with its secondary risk prevention and reduction focus in terms of fire safety, which followed an overall development at the time (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.19). To that end, 14 rules, including 7 choice rules established a new structure of municipal and county fire departments. Overall, the 21 newly established positions, and the fragmentation of 90 choice rules across public and private sectors demonstrate the increased institutionalisation of CM in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Modern CM governance in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (2015) The most recent state ’Law on fire protection, assistance and disaster control’ (’Gesetz uber¨ den Brand- schutz, die Hilfeleistung und den Katastrophenschutz’) from 2015 was subsequently aimed at harmonis- ing existing structures. While many provisions remained unaltered, therefore, §1 introduced specific goal ambitions for CM in terms of the implementation of preventive and protective measures for (1) fire safety, (2) accidents and public emergencies due to natural phenomena, explosions or similar events, and (3) large-scale incidents or disasters (para. 1), relying on and enhancing citizens’ ability to organise self-help (para. 4). Similar to previous legislations, such efforts implied infringements on citizens’ basic rights, with limitations informational self-determination now furthermore included (§48). Moreover, the framework of responsible organisations was elaborated further and their competences enhanced.
This is especially true with respect to local FBs. While, in the first instance, raising boundary rules with respect to voluntary brigades’ spokespersons (§11, para. 4), the law established a new position of ombudspersons tasked with strengthening coherence, integrating individuals, and preventing or resolving conflict (§11 Abs. 5), too. They were afforded a right of recitation vis-a-vis` their section commanders or their chief officer. FBs were furthermore instructed to take considerations of disabled
27 members into account (§7, para. 3) and their voluntary ought to participate in annual advanced trainings (§32, para. 5). Moreover, a new classification of youth brigades was introduced, with a distinction made between volunteers older (youth) and younger than 10 years of age (kids) (§13). Accordingly, brigade chiefs ought to appoint supervisors with suitable qualifications for both, with any of their external assistants (§13, para. 4) and non-operative brigade members (§9, para. 2) afforded equal volunteer status. Moreover, a new class of local government-approved private FBs was introduced, to whom identical rights and obligations applied as to existing plant FBs (§39, para. 5), but municipalities remaining penultimately responsible for any response measures as well as their training (§15). On the other hand, boundary rules for traditional plant FBs were raised with their proficiency to be tested at least every five years (§16). Additionally, these could now, with the approval of district councils, transfer competences to their local fire department (§16, para. 5), too, and the consolidation of fire protection efforts of more than one facility, including cross-border co-operations) in single plant FBs was regulated more heavily.
Nevertheless, the position of private relief organisation was significantly strengthened, too, with public entities able to grant them free access to their training facilities (§32, para. 4) and such organisations acknowledged in federal provisions on civil protection no longer required to declare their willingness to participate or to prove their eligibility (§18, para. 2). Similarly, county’s own voluntary service units (’Regieeinheiten’) were afforded identical rights and duties to those of private relief organisation employees (§19). In a new development, §24 obliged all commissioned agencies to cooperate with emergency medical, public health services and hospitals, and vice versa. These services, in turn, were instructed to participate in disaster relief operations and exercises as well as to maintain operational and emergency plans, with neighbouring hospitals ordered to collaborate, too. Concerning external private actors, meanwhile, the task of maintaining external emergency plans for dangerous facilities was transferred from local governments to county administrations (§§30, 31), with additional regulations imposing a time frame on their update and the provision of relevant information by operators as well as substantiating which data could be considered confidential. On the other hand, §41 bound citizens to practice caution and avert dangers to humans or material assets, while full-aged individuals were obliged to assist in relief operations and exercises upon instruction (§43), too. Administrative organisation from 2015 on Addressing modern concerns of data protection, information processes ought to be guided by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (2016) and the state’s own Data Protection Law (2018) in the absence of more specific provisions (§46), with public agencies remaining able to process personal data and freed from their reporting duties. But, the law changed CM’s administrative framework, too. IMs, for example, were commissioned identical preventive and preparatory tasks as other local governments (§3), responsible authorities were granted extended information rights vis-a-vis` dangerous facilities (§31) and other public authorities or local energy and water providers (§47). Moreover, local governments were instructed to maintain fire fighting vessels whose operational territory was to be
28 determined by municipal joint ventures to execute relief measures on the Rhine river (§6), with the Ministry of the Interior able determine additional jurisdictions (§56, para. 1). Meanwhile, boundary rules for county fire officers were raised (§12), too. In the first instance, they were required to posses suitable qualifications and expertise, they were also forbidden to be part of local FB’s management, too. Regulations concerning public facilities for the coordination of relief efforts were extended, too. On the one hand, control room personnel were now required to have followed specialised training as dispatchers and they ought to retain their capabilities during outages, too (§28). On the other hand, county adminis- trations were instructed to maintain administrative-organisational as well as tactical-operational crisis management staffs for public emergencies and disaster control efforts (§2, para. 1; §4, para. 2), with the former organising a structured registration and report system, and issuing administrative directives, while the latter was tasked with the coordination of operative units (§§35; 36; 37). These staffs, in turn, were instructed to coordinate their efforts under the lead of a Lord Mayor or district administrator and supported by operation control rooms (§28, para. 2), and their personnel needed to be educated and trained continuously at the expense of state government (§35) according to its obligation to facilitate public safety research and standardisation (§5, para. 4). With these state authorities, in turn, responsible coordinating state-wide relief efforts upon request (§39, para. 2), similar staffs ought to be erected at the Ministry of the Interior as well as its district councils, too. While the erection of tactical staffs remained optional for local governments (§35, para. 5), however, district authorities were obliged to plan cross-border coordination efforts in state-wide operational and emergency plans (§5).
In a similar vein, local and county authorities were now formally obliged to assist each other (§39, para. 1) as well as their equivalents in neighbouring federal states, with local governments allowed to establish cross-border assistance agreements (§40). To these ends, counties were mandated increased information rights with respect to possible cross-border threats vis-a-vis` their neighbouring counterparts and could determine the utilisation of their equipment for other purposes (§4). Moreover, local authorities were tasked with alarming the population together with their county (§3), received additional compensation rights vis-a-vis` other commissioned agencies, and could include administrative costs and interest earnings in such claims (§52). The competences of their officers-in-charge were similarly extended to the command of emergency medical services and disaster control units, and, in the absence of police, encompassed additional regulatory competences vis-a-vis` civilians, with measures to be ordered and lifted in mutual agreement (§34). Accordingly, public health institutions ought to be incorporated into preparations at all levels (§24), too. If the Ministry of the Interior assumed command over supra-local relief efforts (§40, para. 4), state government could install a central information office, which was granted identical information rights (§28, para. 2) to support its underlying county and IM administrations (§38, para 2). Lastly, the Ministry could command operations outside its borders, too (§40, para. 4).
Lastly, fire departments’ supervisory mandate was extended to the application of fire safety regulations during permit processes, with stricter boundary rules applying to their personnel and architects possess-
29 ing adequate qualifications regarded equal (§25). Likewise, boundary rules for fire inspection personnel were raised, too, with dedicated certifications to be provided by the state’s central educative facilities. Accordingly, local governments were allowed to transfer their respective tasks to county authorities via agreements under public law (§26, para. 2). Institutional decision-making context after 2015 Overall, the most recent law on CM introduced minor extensions to its predecessor as indicated by a total of 327 rules as opposed to 273. New positions were established especially with regards to CM’s operative organisations. These included two new positions at the fire brigades as well as the involvement of health and emergency medical services. However, existing positions were substantially strengthened, too, with officers-in-charge receiving extensive regulatory competences, private relief organisations being afforded free access to public educative facilities, and civilian duties enhanced. With respect to administrative CM preparations, competences of county authorities were extended to large-scale disasters. This additional task allocation encompassed the introduction of administrative and tactical-operational crisis management staffs and resulted in a total of 78 provisions on county administrations as opposed to the previous 44. Moreover, heightened boundary rules for existing positions at local and county levels indicating their increased professionalisation (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20). This is true for fire officers, fire safety departments and fire inspection personnel. At the central level, meanwhile, new provisions were aimed at harmonising existing structures regarding redundant coordination processes. The introduction of district information centres, regulations concerning the Rhine river, and district governments’ maintenance of operational and emergency plans reflect this. Institutional evolution of CM in Germany Concluding from the above, the institutional evolution CM in Germany and the state of North Rhine- Westphalia in particular followed broader developments in the field. First of all, the ’Statute on the expansion of disaster control’ (1968) mandated traditional military protection with the preparation and delivery of disaster relief capacities, which lay the foundation for their modern ’status quo’ positions according to Norris et al. (2007), Tierney (2012), and Aysan and Lavell (2014). Accordingly, CM then heavily relied on government’s impetus with the statute operational competences for relief units not, and only minimal provisions on the roles of private relief organisations and external actors incorporated. The subsequent state ’Law on Fire Safety and Assistance’ (1998) changed this. Generally speaking, it followed an overall trend toward decentralisation at the time (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.19) with municipalities allocated fundamental competences under the traditional command of their counties during supra-local relief operations. While traditional agencies retained their role, their organisation was significantly substantiated and the fundamental role of volunteer units appropriated by compensation rights. The contributions of private relief organisations and the role of private actors in managing risks were moreover recognised, with their position embedded in the legislation, too. However, CM remained a strong public service, with authorities made to burden costs according to their allocation of tasks. The most recent state ’Law on fire protection, assistance and disaster control’ was subsequently
30 aimed at harmonising these existing structures, reflecting CM’s increasing professionalisation and improving operative capabilities in terms of regulatory competences for units in the field. This entailed the inclusion of public health services as well as a newly introduced staff structure, extended competences and rights for public authorities, and more comprehensive private actor obligations. Local geographical circumstances shaping CM preparations in Gronau The municipality of Gronau is a medium town of 49.460 inhabitants in the rural Western Munsterland¨ area at the Dutch boarder of the state North Rhine Westphalia (IT.NRW, 2018) the city of Enschede (Google Inc., 2019). It is the Borken county administration’s third biggest city and stretches over an area of 78.82 km2 across two sub-territories - Gronau and Epe - (IT.NRW, 2018) which are ∼3,7km apart (Google Inc., 2019). In light of the district’s (378,6 inhabitants/km2) and county’s (259,8 inhabitants/km2) rather rural character in comparison to the state’s average population density of 524,4 inhabitants/km2, Gronau itself is quite densely populated (599 inhabitants/km2) (IT.NRW, 2018), with the Dutch city of Enschede (∼10km, 158.969 inhabitants), Ochtrup (∼10km, 19.608 inhabitants), and Ahaus (∼15km, 39.185 inhabitants) closest by (IT.NRW, 2018; Google Inc., 2019). During the early industrialisation period the city profited from its proximity to the Dutch city of Enschede, with its ’van Delden’-spinning company, founded in 1875, becoming one of the biggest of its kind in Europe in the 1920s and 30s (LWL, 2014). With 32,8% of its working population still employed in manufacturing trades as compared to the state-wide 26,9% average, and a total of 34 manufacturing businesses (IT.NRW, 2018), Gronau’s industrial imprint has partially remained. Regarding relevant risks, the Borken county administration maintains external emergency plans for 3 of those facilities, including underground gas and oil caverns, a chemical company as well as an uranium enrichment facility (Kreis Borken, 2010). Since 1988, Gronau furthermore hosts an annual jazz festival with the number of visitors varying between 12.000 - 18.000 (Jazzfest Gronau, 2019), which was similarly recognised as a leading source of risk among natural phenomena such as large fen fires or floods during our workshop. With respect to CM institutions, all legally relevant actors are represented locally. This includes their public fire brigade with a total of 246 public employees and volunteers staffing a central fire and rescue station (46 full-time employees) as well as brigades in Gronau (75 members) and Epe (88 members) (Feuerwehr Gronau, 2017). Moreover, the German Red Cross Federation as well as the Federal Agency for Technical Relief, while organised supra-locally, posses local chapters, and are involved in the municipality’s emergency planning (Mayor of Gronau, 2011). Similarly, the county’s police organisation maintains a dedicated station for Gronau (Polizei Kreis Borken, 2019) and two hospitals provide public health services (Mayor of Gronau, 2011). Interestingly, Gronau is part of the inter-communal cross-border network ’Euregio’ which also deals with issues of supra-national emergency relief (Euregio, 2019). Their mutual assistance is regulated in a dedicated agreement between the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the government of the Netherlands (Ministerium des Innern NRW, 2014).
31 4.2 Network governance qualities at Gronau municipality According to the above, we can argue that the institutional as well as local geographical circumstances of CM in Gronau have developed in favour of governance structures and instruments, with the municipality given a leading role in organising adequate local relief capacities, the integration of county-approved private relief organisations required, and several businesses within their territory producing extraordinary public risks. Our analysis for sub-question 2 will demonstrate, whether or not the network reflects this perception in terms of 4 network governance qualities. That is, we will describe the outcomes of our qualitative network analysis in terms of the GAT (Bressers et al., 2016). Extent of strategic crises preparation cooperation With the municipality of Gronau and its superior Borken county administration commissioned leading roles with respect to CM preparations and state-level actors similarly involved as indicated by its cross- border cooperation agreement with the Dutch government (Ministerium des Innern NRW, 2014), we can state that all levels of state authority are involved in local crisis preparations even though not all of them were present at the workshop directly (1.1.1a). The same is true for other commissioned government agencies which partook in the workshop, such as the police or the Federal Agency of Technical Relief, both of whom operate locally under the direction of superior levels. The county’s police office even maintains their own crisis control centre (Polizei Kreis Borken, 2019). With the German Red Cross Federation’s local representatives, as the only accredited private relief organisation (Mayor of Gronau, 2011), and the uranium enrichment facility’s (URENCO’s) private plant fire brigade members similarly subordinated to superior levels, we believe that all relevant levels are involved in Gronau’s network. According to the participants, the absence of representatives from healthcare providers as well as its local energy provider should, in turn, be regarded as a sectoral gap (1.1.2b). With the former even legally obliged to be involved, the network can be viewed as incomplete in terms of comprehensive stakeholder involvement (2.1.1a & 2.1.2b), despite 4 of the 9 participants persisting that no relevant stakeholders were missing. Importantly, the fire brigade chief pointed out that the network could be extended spontaneously according to requirements during incident situations. However, this is not sufficient to enhance mutual understanding and organisational learning, according to literature on cooperative crisis preparation efforts (Kapucu, 2008; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012). In a similar vein, all network organisations, state or private, institutionalised in the legal framework and the municipality’s emergency plan similarly acknowledging their position (Mayor of Gronau, 2011), we argue that their problem perspectives are adequately taken into account (3.1.1a). This is reflected in the law’s broad formulation of objectives and the workshop participant’s mutual appraisal, too.
Moreover, the municipality can be said to utilise a diverse mix of instruments to achieve its disaster preparation strategy (4.1.1a), with a municipal emergency plan in the form of a mayoral decree (Mayor of Gronau, 2011) as well as independent and case-specific plans in place at the individual organisations, and the law mandating officers-in-charge as well as their units extensive on-site regulatory competences
32 (power instruments). The workshop participants indicated that communication plays an important role, too. This includes an annual market information point to educate citizens on fire safety and crisis preparedness, situational decision-making during relief operations, and post-incident evaluations. Furthermore, a structure of administrative supervision was installed which mandated higher authorities extensive monitoring and enforcement rights vis-a-vis` lower counterparts as well as external private actors (4.1.3a). While local crisis preparations, thus, involve numerous instruments, financial incentives and voluntary regulations largely excluded until now (4.1.2a) might offer potential for future improvements. Lastly, all network organisations, including the municipality, its fire brigade units, the police, the THW, the Red Cross Federation, and URENCO’s plant brigade, were mandated clear legal responsibilities and respective competences (5.1.1a) under government lead. Their respective competences are, in turn, facilitated with extensive legal (as discussed above) and financial resources (5.1.2b), with local governments entitled to financial contributions by higher authorities, volunteers afforded compensation rights vis-a-vis` their public principals and accredited private relief organisations allowed access to public education facilities as well as maintenance cost reimbursements. While generally accepted, the percep- tion that all responsibilities are facilitated with adequate resources was particularly reverberated by the municipality’s network manager as well as the local police representation. Coherence of strategic crises preparation cooperation As reflected upon above, all levels of government institutions and private actors cooperate regularly (1.2.1a). This is the case during the preparation phases, supra-local trainings and exercises as well as relief operations according to legal provisions. The partners’ statements on the role of diverse inter- communal agreements between different organisations, including state authorities, public fire brigades, and the health sector, are interesting, in that they present a second layer of supra-local cooperation mechanisms available to local entities (Mayor of Gronau, 2011). On a similarly positive note, the fact that 6 of the 7 poll participants argued mutual interdependence is omnipresently recognised (1.2.3b) further underlines this positive view on inter-level cooperation, with legal provisions pointing towards a motivation stimulate redundancy, too. However, the participants were split on whether trust between levels can be regarded as an issue with only a few believing that the levels unquestionably trust each other (1.2.2b). The same is true with respect to the coherence between the network partners. First of all, the legal framework is aimed to harmonise their reciprocal problem perspectives (3.2.1a) in stable institutionalised structures (2.2.2a). To that end, administrative (i.e. responsible entities, competences, accountability) as well as operational provisions (i.e. competences, command & control, assistance) streamline the convergent organisational interests into a coherent set of public service deliveries during crises incidents. Additionally, the workshop participants stated that operational staff work takes place mainly within traditional core structures experienced in day-to-day cooperation (2.2.3a), with many flexible extensions to the staff according to the incident at hand allegedly experienced in a similar way. While all of the participants unequivocally stated that they respect and trust each other accordingly (2.2.4b), only just more than half of the workshop participants stated that the partners cooperate regularly and one of the
33 core actors even perceived this as seldom (2.2.1b). Overall, the partners can be described as a largely coherent set with possibilities for improvements.
Likewise, the participants unanimously agreed that their cooperation is based on synergy (4.2.1b) and confidently stated that their assigned responsibilities are viewed as legitimate by main stakeholders based on their historic societal foundations and consequent legal position (5.2.2b). Both indicators have been assessed as excellent. According to the participants, their organisations operate independently according to their own procedures with the coordination of mutual efforts streamlined in initial emergency operation plans and executed in operative staffs with the focus on the implementation of effective relief measures (4.2.2a). With their cooperation predominantly based on synergies, the actors indicated that conflicts are generally resolved based on legal and factual competences to avoid power struggles, and create a cooperative decision-making environment (5.2.1a). Flexibility of strategic crises preparation cooperation Given the fact that the up- and downscaling of mitigation efforts according to the specific crisis situation at hand forms an integral element of the relevant legislation as well as the municipality’s emergency plan (Mayor of Gronau, 2011), we argue that the local crisis cooperation is highly flexible with respect to the different levels involved (1.3.1a), with general legal provisions commission higher government entities according to the extent of an incident and the local emergency plan describes when and how such a transfer of competences takes place. The workshop participants furthermore stated that external network members are sporadically involved in local preparations (i.e. a private business granting the fire brigade access to its diesel pump), and that their operational coordination staff is regularly extended with situation-specific expert advisers according to the incident at hand, too (2.3.1a). The staff itself is lead flexibly by one of the core actors, with the fire brigade generally responsible for emergencies, but the police leading operations during school shootings for example. While the inclusiveness with respect to external actors could be improved (e.g. local supermarket companies providing cooling capacities during electricity outages), Gronau’s local network appears fairly flexible. This perspective is substantiated by the participants’ claim that everyone shares in their social capital to support each other (2.3.2b). In a similar vein, poll participants stated that there are opportunities to reassess goals, with 2 saying that this is always possible, 2 stating that this is the case occasionally, and another 2 claiming that this is only possible under the right circumstances (3.3.1b). As CM relies on technological and organisational advances, the opportunity to regularly revise tactical goal ambitions (i.e. how can I properly rescue the population?) forms a strong aspect of Gronau’s local disaster governance network. Similarly, the number of available instruments at the actors’ disposal in combination with their discretionary spaces allow them to employ such in mutual combination (4.3.1a & 4.3.2a).
On the other hand, however, 5 of 7 participants pointed out that the pooling of responsibilities was hardly possible as it bears strong impediments for transparency and accountability of their publicly mandated tasks (5.3.1b) even though the fundamental role of relevant legal provisions is the harmonisation of
34 multiple stakeholder goals (i.e. government, public and private relief organisations, healthcare sector, police, private sector, citizens) into a coherent streamlined emergency prevention and relief framework (3.3.2a). This reverberates with findings from recent literature that ”establishing norms and methods and their enforcement, and public accountability and transparency become far more important” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.8), and that ”without the ability to monitor and measure the beneficial (or adverse) effects of disaster governance, it is impossible to assess the systems transparency or accountability” (Gall et al., 2014, p.8). With more publicly accessible data and increasingly complex actor environments (Aysan & Lavell, 2014), this can be seen as CM’s other side of the coin, as publicly mandated tasks create strongly legitimised actor positions, but transparency and accountability concerns delimit possibilities to pool responsibilities and resources efficiently, with a workshop discussion concerning whether or not and in which situations public mandates effectively overlap reflecting the relative novelty of such a thought to the partners. As the worst item in the GAT, indicator 5.3.1b has been assessed as ’poor’. Intensity of strategic crises preparation cooperation Lastly, the participant agreed that county and local levels of government have the greatest impact on improvements to tactical-operational disaster response capacities due to their legal position (1.4.1a), whereas state level authorities are mainly interested in the effective utilisation of financial resources provided by them. Local government and actors are leading efforts to improve their capacities to protect their citizens from dangerous effects. Similarly, the Borken county administration strives to ensure suitability and availability of such capacities for deployment in supra-local relief efforts. To that end, it issues directives with respect to the standardisation of equipment and procedures, and provides advanced personnel schooling, and can therefore be said to have a similar, or maybe even greater, impact on improvements to local disaster response resources. According to the workshop participants, the same is true with respect to private and federal technical relief organisations, too. In line with the above, we can state that the municipality of Gronau and its local fire brigade press strongest for improvements (2.4.1a), as indicated by their maintenance of independent. administra- tive emergency and incident plans, respectively. Moreover, the workshop participants claimed to be provided adequate, but limited, resources for the implementation of such improvements (5.4.1b), with the majority (6 of 7 participants) indicating that they ’just about’ or even ’significantly’ suffice. The resounding judgement at the workshop was that, whereas improvement measures orientate on the resources available rather than the other way around, finances for public safety are rarely skimped. Accordingly, all three preceding indicators were assessed as ’good’.
On the other hand side, the ideas for improvements are rarely ambitious (3.4.1b), with 6 of 7 participants stating that goals minimally deviate from their business-as-usual and the remaining participant believing they are not different at all. Because the partners’ focus in Gronau mainly has to do with traditional elements of CM, such goals could be significantly more ambitious with respect to community compe- tences, network and information management or resource acquisition according to the literature (Norris et al., 2007; Kapucu et al., 2010; Tierney, 2012; Aysan & Lavell, 2014). As the second worst indicator on
35 the networks’ governance qualities, this item has been assessed as ’insufficient’. Similarly, the implied improvement of the most recent legal provisions with respect to local capacities’ supra-local redundancy and standardisation, citizen education and their self-help abilities as well as incident communication toward the public appear solid, but not ambitious in light of recent literature findings (4.4.1a). The same can be said about the applied mix of instruments (4.4.2a), which work well due to the strong motivational basis of the partners, but alternative instruments such as financial incentives could increase network ambitions significantly. Both indicators have been assessed as ’neutral’. Network governance qualities at Gronau Overall, our assessment of the network’s governance qualities has been positive with 39% (14 out of 36) of all items as well as 25% of all cells (5 out of 20) rated ’excellent’. Together with the 44% (16 out of 36) of items as well as 55% of cells (11 of 20) assessed as ’good’, roughly 83% of questions and 80% of quality criteria have been judged positively. The network’s biggest strength is its extensive and coherent cooperation among different levels and scales, characterised by an engaged and flexible government apparatus. Moreover, the partners’ coherence and extensive experience in mutual crisis preparations as well as their flexible inclusion of external actors according to the crisis situation should be seen as strong points of Gronau’s local CM cooperation. Similarly, the multitude of harmonious problem perspectives are adequately considered and regularly reassessed in local decision-making processes, with a diversity of coherent instruments utilised, too. Lastly, all responsibilities are clearly assigned among the actors who feel their roles are highly legitimised according to external perception as well as their official legal positions and facilitated with sufficient resources. Such aspects of authority and recognition as well as fiscal permissions appear much more problematic in other contexts (cf. Aysan & Lavell, 2014).
We can therefore describe Gronau’s disaster governance network as a fairly extent and particularly coherent set of legally commissioned actors focussed on community-level goals of moderate ambition rather than network-level interests such as efficient resource allocation or information management. This is characterised by inclusive and flexible decision-making processes during incident relief operations but rarely beyond. Many of the issues of environmental governance (i.e. convergent problem perspectives & goal ambitions) appear to be inherent strengths. It remains to be seen, however, whether this holds true for more extent disaster governance regimes at higher levels or bigger municipalities. Conversely, Gronau’s CM network faces challenges common to local disaster governance regimes, too, with 4 of the 20 cells (20%) assessed neutrally or worse and 2 of the 36 items ( 6%) judged as ’insufficient’ or ’poor’. This is especially true with respect to three aspects. First of all, the extent (or diversity) of relevant actors in the network due to the traditionally institutionalised partners’ strong legal positions, which is among others illustrated by the lack of community involvement (Aysan & Lavell, 2014). The relative inability to pool responsibilities, moreover, proved a weakness of Gronau’s CM network, reflecting widespread concerns over a lack of transparency as an antecedent of weak accountability mechanisms in local disaster governance (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20). These two related terms appear to define boundaries to modern CM decentralisation efforts. Lastly, the network appears to lack ambitious goals, with the policy instrument mix not encouraging significant advancements either.
36 4.3 The agreement’s effects on supportive CM tasks Thus, with the legal basis affording local government, its public relief organisations and other partners great discretion in organising local CM capacities and their strong coherence, we expect voluntary regulation to address, and maybe resolve, fundamental shortcomings in terms of broad actor involvement, efficiency through pooled responsibilities as well as the ambitions of local crisis preparation efforts. The following section will discuss whether that is case and which aspects the participants deem most useful.
I believe the agreement....
01) …will increase the availability of resources in the network.
02) …will increase the diversity of available resources in the network.
03) …will decrease the costs of acquiring resources.
04) …will lead to a clearer allocation of roles.
05) …will improve the partners‘ relationship.
06) …will lead to a greater understanding of each other‘s positions
07) … will lead to shared terminologies.
08) … makes possible future CM policy development.
09) … stimulates the partners to share experiences with each other to learn together.
10) … will improve the citizens‘ self-help capacities.
1 2 3 4 5
Figure 4.1: Mean item scores operational supportive tasks (1 = strongly disagree - 5 = strongly agree)
With respect to operational supportive CM tasks, the survey respondents were most positive about the agreement’s contributions to the partners’ mutual understanding (Item 6) and the use of common language (Item 7), with 7 of 8 (87,5%) respondents agreeing that it will lead to a better understanding of each other’s standpoints and the use of mutual terminologies, respectively. The remaining person (12,5%) even strongly agreed with both statements. Therefore, all participants concurred with these items. Moreover, the network agents believe the agreement will stimulate knowledge sharing among the partners (Item 9), with 2 agreeing strongly (25%), 5 agreeing (62,5%) and the other undecided (12,5%). The same holds true for the improvement of informal relationships (social capital/Item 5) and the development of future policies (org. learning/Item 8), with 1 agreeing strongly, 6 agreeing and 1 respondent undecided for both items. Finally, 7 (87,5%) of the survey participants believe that it contributes to a clearer role allocation (Item 4), too. On the other hand, our respondents expressed lower expectations with respect to the network’s resource positions. While 50% believe the agreement will contribute to the diversity and availability of resources (Items 1 & 2), 3 (37,5%) and 2 (25%) remain undecided, whereas 1 (12.5%) and 2 (25%) even expressed slight doubts, respectively. The same holds true for their expectations with respect to community competences (Item 10), too, as 3 (37,5%) respondents agreed, another 3 remained undecided and 25% either disagreed or disagreed strongly. Lastly, only 2 respondents (25%) expect the costs of resource acquisition to depreciate (Item 3), with another 2 undecided and 50% even disagreeing.
37 I believe the agreement... 16) …will incre 4 15)11) ...will …will inc increase the4,125 frequency with which the partners share operation-relevant information. 14) …will cont 4,125 13) …will allow 3,375 12) …will increa 4,125 12) …will increase the intelligibility of shared information. 11) …will incr 3,625
13) …will allow partners to access additional information sources.
14) …will contribute to the network‘s information management skills.
15) ...will increase the amount of trusted information sources.
16) …will increase trust in existing information sources.
1 2 3 4 5
Figure 4.2: Mean item scores technical supportive tasks (1 = strongly disagree - 5 = strongly agree)
Concerning improvements in technical supportive tasks, the respondents expressed particularly positive views regarding the intelligibility of shared information (Item 12), with 7 (87,5%) agreeing and one person even strongly agreeing. In a similar vein, 5 (62,5%) & 2 (25%) of our respondents agreed or strongly agreed, respectively, that the covenant will increase the number of trusted information sources in the network (Item 15) with the remaining 1 undecided. Likewise, 2 participants (25%) strongly antici- pate increasing trust in existing information sources (Item 16), with 4 (50%) positive and 2 undecided. Moreover, 7 (87,5%) suspect a positive influence on the network’s ability to process information (Item 14), with one person undecided. Finally, 62,5% (5 counts) still agreed that the frequency with which mission-relevant data are shared (Item 11) will improve, whereas 3 remained undecided. Finally, our sample viewed the access to additional shared information sources (Item 15) as the least likely aspect technical supportive tasks to improve, with 50% (4 counts) remaining positive, but 3 respondents undecided and another 1 even doubting that this will materialise.
Overall, our sample of local network participants at the municipality of Gronau anticipate improvements in their mutual understanding and the use of common terminologies, in particular, with other soft operational aspects such as social capital and organisational learning expected to improve, too. However, they were less positive with respect to the availability and diversity of resources, with their scepticism regarding the efficiency of resource acquisition strongly reflecting findings from environmental gover- nance studies (Bressers et al., 2009). In spite of the agreement including a provision on mutual efforts of citizen education, strangely only few participants expect improvements in community competences. This view on the agreement’s contributions to operational supportive tasks is subsequently reflected in expectations on information management capacities, too, with the partners especially positive about the intelligibly of share information, the amount of trusted information sources and the ability to process information. Moreover, they expect trust in existing information sources and the frequency with which mission-relevant information is shared among the partners to increase, whereas fewer believe they will receive access to additional shared information systems.
38 CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
In the following and last chapter we will formulate an answer to our problem statement by summarising our results per sub-question. Our central research question was: Can a negotiated agreement enhance perceived performance of crisis preparation efforts in the relevant institutional and governance contexts of the municipality of Gronau and how (not)?. Our results indicate that this is the case, although apparently for different reasons than in environmental governance settings. Firstly, local CM in Germany and at the municipality of Gronau, accordingly, relies heavily on its legally institutionalised core actors, while the decentralisation of CM’s administrative and operational competences has burdened local governments with far-reaching provisions requiring coordination of a multitude of public services in multi-level structures and increased financial burdens. This reflects diverse research findings from other settings, which have demonstrated the benefits of broad actor involvement. The structure of Gronau’s CM network merely reflects the legal institutional framework, however, as it consists of, but does not represent all, these legally commissioned entities, with other possible contributors to CM preparations largely excluded or only involved externally. Due to the strong public mandate and the actor’s subsequent perceived legitimacy, this network of core actors is strongly coherent and afforded sufficient financial resources, but lacks ambitious goals as the partners focus on the delivery of traditional community-level goals rather than incorporating network-level goals, too. Their publicly mandated positions furthermore bear impediments to the efficient pooling of resources which can be seen as one of the substantial strength of environmental governance processes. Consequently, with the partners anticipating particularly strong improvements to the network’s ability to learn together, to produce future joint policy measures, and to manage shared information, we believe that the agreement will ultimately lead to more ambitious goal propositions in the future according to Bressers et al. (2009). The respondents’ expectations on advances to soft operational factors such as mutual understanding, shared common language, and social capital in terms of clear role allocations and informal relationships, indicate the initiation of an underlying process to tackle difficult coordinative issues with respect to the network’s efficiency in the future, too.
While our results indicate the possible functioning of negotiated agreements in CM settings, they remain case-specific results and need to be considered within their specific context at hand. However, they point to significant similarities between CM and environmental management settings, but also their differences as CM actors experience few legitimacy struggles as expected, but measures to improve the network’s efficiency are more difficult to implement. Moreover, while relevant legal provisions certainly afford the actors with sufficient discretion in their execution of the public mandate, we do not know to
39 which extent the agreement’s effectiveness can be explained by case-specific weaknesses of Gronau’s network rather than wider organisational structures of local CM in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Germany in general. In the end, it remains to be seen whether or not the agreement does indeed tackle these local weaknesses of network governance and in which ways that materialises. Accordingly, a more structural comparison of supportive CM capacities according to our theory between municipalities with and without agreement to establish the agreements’ factual effect size among other process-related factors could prove an interesting next step in this line of inquiry. Similarly, testing the strength of correlation between individual structural or case-specific factors should provide more compelling insights into the workings of covenants in disaster governance settings, too. For this to happen however, researchers first need to provide conceptual clarity on the interrelations between tactical-operational CM capacities according to Stolk et al. (2011) and strategic-cooperative disaster governance capacities according to Norris et al. (2007), Kapucu (2008), Kapucu et al. (2010), Tierney (2012) and Aysan and Lavell (2014), as while they appear to overlap significantly, they do not combine well conceptually on the whole. In a similar vein, while our research has provided a preliminary framework for performance measurement of administrative CM preparations, future research needs to clarify the inter-relation between policy-making and other fundamental preparatory tasks (e.g. awareness raising, training/exercises, evaluation and doctrine development, maintenance and warehousing) with supportive and ultimately also operative CM capacities. With specific regard to the difficulties of developing effi- cient processes without compromising transparency and legitimacy, it would be interesting to compare German disaster governance networks who are heavily organised in inter-communal unions as opposed to independent local networks such as the one in Gronau.
Overall, we believe our research has demonstrated the applicability of CIT framework to the field of local disaster governance fairly well. However, our research should only be seen as the theoretical foundation for further application of the model, as research on decentralised disaster governance point to the fact that ”problems with promoting changes in structures stem from a fear of loss of power in status quo contexts” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.20), and that failings often ”reflect [...] inequities in local power structures (Williams, 2011)” (Aysan & Lavell, 2014, p.22). Accordingly, application of the theory’s actor interaction model based on the characteristics of motivation, power, and information could prove an interesting solution to such problems in disaster governance practice. Moreover, the model could form a substantial basis for a deeper look into the functioning of NAs in CM settings, too. That this is the case, is further underlined by Aysan & Lavell’s (2014, p.41) finding that CM policy studies ”often fail to move beyond notions of correlation and regression and are unable to capture the true reasons as to why apparently similar conditions are in fact causally and process-wise very different (for example, the lack of progress from laws and policies to real implementation; the difficulties in achieving decentralization and participation; the lack of adequate financial resources).” As we applied a Dutch theoretical approach towards policy implementation processes to a German practical context, the role of cultural dimensions (as incorporated in the CIT model as a wider context) in
40 explaining differences in governance cooperation and, thus, varying NA performance levels serves as a last interesting point of departure for future research. Whereas we have not gathered any specific data on this topic, we share the CIT model’s view that the way how case-specific network processes take shape are structurally determined by, amongst other wider context factors, cultural characteristics. Even though the GAT’s issue statements were deduced from Dutch governance contexts, they epitomise many issues of German local CM cooperation fairly well, with our workshop participants acknowledging all questions as relevant.. This is in line with other studies successfully applying and testing the framework in American and other Europeans settings, too. In our German setting, this is especially true for concerns over transparency and accountability with respect to flexible governance processes. During the workshop for example, the partners exhibited a strong concern for complying to formal procedures over adequate actor involvement. Whereas the relevant administrative structures (Dutch centralised unity state and German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia) are actually comparable, therefore, German operative units’ extent regulatory competences vis-a-vis` citizens in close proximity indicate that culture does indeed play a fundamental role in how governance processes take shape, with the Dutch and German cultures mainly differing in terms of masculinity and uncertainty avoidance according to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Finally, we hope to have incentivised readers and peer-researchers alike, to invest future efforts and time into the more structural linkages between the two fields to qualitatively further the field of policy research in CM settings.
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44 Appendix A - Disaster specific GAT
Governance Quality of governance regime Dimension Extent Coherence Flexibility Intensity Levels & How many levels are Do these levels work Is it possible to move up Is there a strong scales involved and dealing with together and do they trust and down levels impact from a certain establishing disaster each other between levels? (upscaling and level towards the responses? To what degree is the mutual downscaling) given the improvement of Are there any important dependence among levels crisis situation at stake? disaster responses? gaps or missing levels? recognised ? Actors & Are all relevant What is the strength of Is it possible that new Is there a strong Networks stakeholders involved? interactions between actors are included or pressure from an Are there any stakeholders? even that the lead shifts actor or actor stakeholders not involved In what ways are these from one actor to coalition towards the or even excluded? interactions institutionalised another when there are improvement of in stable structures? pragmatic reasons for disaster responses? Do the stakeholders have this? experience in working Do the actors share in together? ‘social capital‘ allowing Do they trust and respect them to support each each other? other?
Problem To what extent are the To what extent do the Are there opportunities How different are the perspectiv various problem various perspectives and to reassess goals? goal ambitions from es and goal perspectives taken into goals support each other, or Can multiple goals be the status quo or ambitions account? are they in competition or optimised in cooperative business-as-usual? conflict? crisis preparation arrangements? Strategies What types of To what extent is the Are there opportunities What is the implied and instruments are included cooperation planning based to combine or make use improvement of instrument in the disaster on synergy? of different types of disaster responses s preparation strategy? Are there any overlaps or instruments? compared to current Are there any excluded conflicts of arrangements Is there a choice? practices and how types? created by the included strongly do the Are monitoring and policy instruments? instruments enforcement instruments incentivise and included? enforce this? Responsi- Are all responsibilites To what extent do the To what extent is it Is the amount of bilities clearly assigned and assigned responsibilities possible to pool the allocated resources and facilitated with create competence struggles assigned responsibilities sufficient to resources resources? or cooperation within or and resources as long as implement the across institutions? accountability and measures needed for Are they considered transparency are not the intended legitimate by the main compromised? improvements in stakeholders? disaster response?
45 Appendix B - Completed GAT
Governance- Quality of governance regime Dimension 1) Extent 2) Coherence 3) Flexibility 4) Intensity I) Levels & 1.1.1a) How many 1.2.1a) Do these levels work 1.3.1a) Is it possible to 1.4.1a) Is there a strong Scales levels are involved together? move up and down levels impact from a certain and dealing with 1.2.2b) Do they trust each other? (upscaling and level towards the establishing disaster 1.2.3b) To what degree is the mutual downscaling) given the improvement of disaster responses? dependence among levels crisis situation at hand? responses? 1.1.2b) Are there any recognised? important gaps or missing levels? II) Actors & 2.1.1a) Are all 2.2.1b) What is the strength of 2.3.1a) Is it possibe that 2.4.1a) Is there strong Networks relevant stakeholders cooperation between stakeholders? new actors are included pressure from an actor or involved? 2.2.2a) In what ways are these or even that the lead actor coalition towards 2.1.2b) Are there any interactions institutionalised in stable shifts from one actor to the improvement of stakeholders not structures? another when there are disaster responses? involved or even 2.2.3a) Do the stakeholders have pragmatic reasons for excluded? experience in working together? this? 2.2.4b) Do they trust and respect 2.3.2b) Do the actors each other? share in ‘social capital‘ allowing them to support each other?
III) Problem 3.1.1a) To what 3.2.1a) To what extent do the various 3.3.1b) Are there 3.4.1b) How different are perspectives extent are the various perspectives and goals support each opportunities to reassess the goal ambitions from & goal problem perspectives other, or are they in competition or goals? the status quo or ambitions taken into account? conflict? 3.3.2a) Can multiple business-as-usual? goals be optimised in cooperative crisis preparation arragngements? IV) Strategies 4.1.1a) What types of 4.2.1b) To what extent is the 4.3.1a) Are there 4.4.1a) What is the & instruments are cooperation based on synergy? opportunities to combine implied improvement of instruments included in the 4.2.2a) Are there any overlaps or or make use of different disaster response disaster preparation conflicts of arrangements created by types of instruments? compared to current strategy? the included policy instruments? 4.3.2a) Is there a choice? practices? 4.1.2a) Are there any 4.4.2a) Ihow strongly do excluded types? the instruments 4.1.3a) Are incentivise and enforce monitoring and this? enforcement instruments included? V) 5.1.1a) Are all 5.2.1a) To what extent do the 5.3.1b) To what extent is 5.4.1b) Is the amount of Responsibiliti responsibilities clearly assigned responsibilities create it possible to pool the allocated resources es & assigned? competence struggles or cooperation assigned responsibilities sufficient to implement resources 5.1.2b) Are they all within or across institutions? and resources as long as the measures needed for facilitated with 5.2.2b) Are they considered accountability and the intended resources? legitimate by the main stakeholders? transparency are not improvements in disaster compromised? response?
46 Appendix C - Survey items Ich glaube, der ”Leitfaden zur gemeinschaftlichen Gefahrenabwehrplanung fur¨ das Stadtgebiet Gronau”... [trifft uberhaupt¨ nicht zu - trifft vollstandig¨ zu]
Operational supportive tasks
1. ... wird die Verfugbarkeit¨ von Mitteln & Ressourcen erhohen.¨ 2. ... wird zur Diversitat¨ der verfugbaren¨ Mittel & Ressourcen im Krisennetzwerk beitragen. 3. ... wird die Kosten zur Ressourcenbeschaffung senken. 4. ... wird zu einer deutlicheren Rollenverteilung beitragen. 5. ... wird die informellen Beziehungen zwischen den beteiligten Partnern starken.¨ 6. ... wird zu einem besseren Verstandnis¨ der gegenseitigen Standpunkte unter den Partnern fuhren.¨ 7. ... wird zu gemeinsamen Terminologien fuhren.¨ 8. ... wird die Ausarbeitung von zukunftigen¨ Maßnahmen bzgl. des lokalen Krisenmanagements ermoglichen.¨ 9. ... stimuliert die Partnerorganisationen Erkenntnisse miteinander zu teilen, um gemeinsam zu lernen. 10. ... wird die Selbsthilfefahigkeit¨ der Bevolkerung¨ im Krisenfall starken.¨ Technical supportive tasks
11. ... wird dazu beitragen, dass haufiger¨ einsatzrelevante Informationen zwischen den beteiligten Partnern geteilt werden. 12. ... wird dazu beitragen, dass miteinander geteilte Informationen fur¨ die Partner leichter verstandlich¨ sind. 13. ... ermoglicht¨ den Partnern Zugang zu zusatzlichen¨ gemeinsamen Informationssystemen. 14. ... wird zur allgemeinen Fahigkeit¨ im Netzwerk beitragen, Informationen zu verarbeiten. 15. ... wird die Anzahl der zuverlassigen¨ Informationsquellen im Netzwerk erhohen.¨ 16. ... wird zum Vertrauen in bereits bestehende Informationsquellen beitragen.
47 Appendix D - Survey results
Strongly Strongly Question Disagree Undecided Agree Total Disagree Agree
... wird die Verfügbarkeit von Mitteln & Count 0 (0.00%) 2 (25.00%) 2 (25.00%) 4 (50.00%) 0 (0.00%) 8 1 Ressourcen erhöhen. Mean 3,25
... wird zur Diversität der verfügbaren Count 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 3 (37.50%) 4 (50.00%) 0 (0.00%) 8 2 Mittel & Ressourcen im Krisennetzwerk beitragen. Mean 3,375
... wird die Kosten zur Count 0 (0.00%) 4 (50.00%) 2 (25.00%) 2 (25.00%) 0 (0.00%) 8 3 Ressourcenbeschaffung senken. Mean 2,75
... wird zu einer deutlicheren Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 7 (87.50%) 0 (0.00%) 8 4 Rollenverteilung beitragen. Mean 3,875
... wird die informellen Beziehungen Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 6 (75.00%) 1 (12.50%) 8 5 zwischen den beteiligten Partnern stärken. Mean 4 ... wird zu einem besseren Verständnis Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 7 (87.50%) 1 (12.50%) 8 6 der gegenseitigen Standpunkte unter den Partnern führen. Mean 4,125
... wird zu gemeinsamen Terminologien Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 7 (87.50%) 1 (12.50%) 8 7 führen. Mean 4,125
... wird die Ausarbeitung von zukünftigen Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 6 (75.00%) 1 (12.50%) 8 8 Maßnahmen bzgl. des lokalen Krisenmanagements ermöglichen. Mean 4 ... stimuliert die Partnerorganisationen Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 5 (62.50%) 2 (25.00%) 8 9 Erkenntnisse miteinander zu teilen, um gemeinsam zu lernen. Mean 4,125
... wird die Selbsthilfefähigkeit der Count 1 (12.50%) 1 (12.50%) 3 (37.50%) 3 (37.50%) 0 (0.00%) 8 10 Bevölkerung im Krisenfall stärken. Mean 3
Table 1: Survey results on operational supportive tasks
Strongly Strongly Question Disagree Undecided Agree Total Disagree Agree ... wird dazu beitragen, dass häufiger Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 3 (37.50%) 5 (62.50%) 0 (0.00%) 8 einsatzrelevante Informationen 1 zwischen den beteiligten Partnern geteilt Mean 3,625 werden. ... wird dazu beitragen, dass Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 7 (87.50%) 1 (12.50%) 8 2 miteinander geteilte Informationen für die Partner leichter verständlich sind. Mean 4,125
... ermöglicht den Partnern Zugang zu Count 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 3 (37.50%) 4 (50.00%) 0 (0.00%) 8 3 zusätzlichen gemeinsamen Informationssystemen. Mean 3,375
... wird zur allgemeinen Fähigkeit im Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 7 (87.50%) 0 (0.00%) 8 4 Netzwerk beitragen, Informationen zu verarbeiten. Mean 4,125
... wird die Anzahl der zuverlässigen Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 1 (12.50%) 5 (62.50%) 2 (25.00%) 8 5 Informationsquellen im Netzwerk erhöhen. Mean 4,125
... wird zum Vertrauen in bereits Count 0 (0.00%) 0 (0.00%) 2 (25.00%) 4 (50.00%) 2 (25.00%) 8 6 bestehende Informationsquellen beitragen. Mean 4
Table 2: Survey results on technical supportive tasks
48