Disaster by Management: Risk Assessment, Communication, and Response in Bureaucracies
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Disaster by Management: Risk Assessment, Communication, and Response in Bureaucracies Christine M. Rodrigue * Eugenie Rovai Department of Geography and Department of Geography and Planning and Environmental Science and Policy Program Social Science Program California State University, Long Beach California State University, Chico [email protected] [email protected] (562) 985-4895 or -8432 (530) 898-6091 (562) 985-8993 (fax) * corresponding author Biographical sketches Christine M. Rodrigue is a professor of Eugenie Rovai is a professor of geography geography and affiliated faculty in and planning at California State University, environmental science and policy and Chico, and directs the Social Science emergency services administration at California Program there. Her interests lie in hazards, State University, Long Beach. Her research water resource policy, political redistricting, publications and presentations are in natural and and cartography. sociogenic hazards and geoscience education. 1 Disaster by Management: Risk Assessment, Communication, and Response in Bureaucracies Abstract This paper analyzes the structure of human error in three disaster case studies: September 11th, the Columbia crash, and the marijuana production by international drug cartels in American wilderness areas. The focus is on the systematic erosion of risk assessment communications as they move within complex bureaucracies toward risk managers with the power possibly to mitigate or prevent disaster. Risk assessment is politically subordinate to risk management and often spatially dispersed, while risk management is politically superior to risk assessment and typically spatially concentrated. Risk communications are attenuated during their ascent by the friction of social and spatial distance, diluted by the increasing number and seeming urgency of other managerialist concerns at each hub in the hierarchy, and often divided by competing stovepipes to the top. The outcome can truly be “disaster by management.” 2 Disaster by Management: Risk Assessment, Communication, and Response in Bureaucracies Introduction This paper analyzes the interaction of risk assessment and risk management in complex public organizations. It compares the structure of human error in three case studies, two of which eventuated in catastrophic failures and one of which may yet do so: the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States, the loss of the Columbia Space Shuttle, and, now, the expansion of marijuana cultivation by Mexican drug trafficking organizations in U.S. National Forest and National Park lands. Analysis of the first two focuses on single Federal agencies: the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The third, still evolving case entails interactions among local and state agencies and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and the National Park Service (NPS). In such bureaucracies, risk assessment communication moves along the spokes of an organizational hierarchy toward socially and spatially concentrated hubs of decision-making, each of which makes risk management decisions in politicized contexts peculiar to its own scale and level. These contexts affect the outcome of a given risk assessment communication: Is the risk managed by an effective decision-maker at that level? Is the communication passed along another spoke in search of an effective decision-maker at a more influential hub? Or is the risk assessment suppressed with either no decision taken to alter risk or with sanctions applied to the messengers of risk? In each of the cases, technical information suggesting disaster was, or is, weakly transmitted within an elaborate bureaucracy and high-level decision-makers failed or are failing to authorize action to prevent tragedy. The result is "disaster by management." 1 The Theoretical Background The disaster by management framework for these case studies integrates seven elements. These are public sector managerialism, organizational theory, accumulation and legitimization functions of government, accident theory, risk perception, the tension between risk assessment and risk management, and geographies. Managerialism Managerialism represents a search for and application of "scientific" principles of sound management modeled on corporations trying to manage multiple plants, offices, markets, and product-lines (Gordon 1978; Boje 2002). The idealized efficiency of the private sector corporation is contrasted with the public sector, which is assumed shielded from market forces through dependence on tax revenues and, therefore, necessarily, inefficient (O'Connor 1973; Peters and Pierre 1998). Taxes, moreover, are believed to drain the efficiency of the model private corporation. Managerialism exerts pressure to apply managerial techniques from the private sector to optimize the efficiency of a public sector agency or institution, so as to reduce tax burdens on the private sector. This pressure for managerial efficiency can be seen from the very beginnings of the discipline of public administration (e.g., Wilson 1887; Taylor 1911) and has only accelerated with the advent of the New Public Management movement since the 1980s. The specific goals of private companies, public agencies, and the military may differ, but the managerial function is viewed as transferable from one to another. The industry-specific technical knowledge of a manager, then, is less important than the more generic training and background in management. Managerialist themes include hierarchy and management 2 expertise, application of technology and expertise to streamline processes, outcome or output assessment, and cost-effectiveness (Peters and Pierre 1998; Boje 2002; Taptiklis 2005). In the public sector, managerialism emphasizes hierarchy and technology and defines the rôle of the manager as balancing the socially- and politically-set goals of the agency with resource constraints, maximizing output for the minimum social investment. There is little empirical work on whether this model is even appropriate for government activity, given that business has a narrow obligation to make a profit and government agencies have multiple “consumers” and sometimes contradictory purposes (Peters and Pierre 1998; Daniels and Clark- Daniels 2006: 7). NASA, NPS, and USFS show greater impact of public sector managerialism than the FBI in the three case studies. Organizational Theory Organizational theory explores the structuring of individuals in organizational settings. One of its classical theories categorizes organizations into mechanistic and organic structures (Burns and Stalker 1961). In a departure from the “one best way” outlook of managerialism, Burns and Stalker argued that the continuum between mechanistic and organic organization is related to the degree of uncertainty in the external environment of the institution. Neither of these end points is intrinsically better than the other: It depends on the environmental context. Mechanistic structures are hierarchical and authoritarian, with finely differentiated and often repetitive tasks, centralization of decision-making and knowledge, and communication channeled along vertical chains of command. In industry, these correspond with Fordist production practices and their massive production of similar or identical pieces for a stable mass market. Mechanistic organizations are suited to external environments with a high degree of 3 predictability, enabling planning, elaboration of the division of labor and hierarchy, and control of the flow of information from the top. Organic organizations, on the other hand, are associated with external environments of high uncertainty. Planning is challenging and information cannot readily be centralized and redistributed. The emphasis is on flexibility and teamwork among people (even outside the organization) with very different skills, lateral communication, and a reduced dependence on hierarchy. Production tends to focus on small batches or one-of-a-kind products and services. All Federal agencies examined here tend towards the mechanistic end of the continuum. For NASA and the FBI, this is possibly a legacy of their military or policing origins. The NPS and USFS grew out of the Progressive Era, when public administration idealized apolitical technocratic expertise in service of the public good, which led to managerialism. Each of them with its mechanistic legacy now finds itself operating in external milieux and performing tasks suited to organic organization. Accumulation and Legitimization Functions of Government Of relevance to understanding the political and economic uncertainties in the extragovernmental environment is James O'Connor's notion of "accumulation functions" and "legitimization functions" of governmental agencies. He presented this dichotomy in a 1973 book, The Fiscal Crisis of the State. Accumulation activities are those facilitating profitable operation of private companies by providing social functions and infrastructure that cannot normally be met by the private sector. Examples include airport and port operation, construction and maintenance of transportation 4 systems, operation of State or municipal utilities, maintenance of law and order, and, in some contexts, education and workforce development. These functions enjoy relatively stable funding, often from independent revenue sources, making them less vulnerable to the political process. Legitimization functions, on the other hand, are those taking care of the welfare