A critical junctures approach to disaster recovery policies – an idea whose time has come?. (May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blahak, Jana
• Is Part Of: International journal of disaster risk reduction. Volume 58(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-05
• Subjects: Critical juncture -- Resilience -- Disaster -- Recovery -- Policy Change Frameworks -- Focusing events; Emergency management -- Periodicals; Risk management -- Periodicals; Disaster relief -- Periodicals; Hazard mitigation -- Periodicals; 363.34
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102164
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2212-4209

Abstract

Abstract: Analysing disaster recovery, understood as a complex process that spans multiple disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities [1], is an ambitious undertaking, that requires a broad set of instruments to capture all relevant dimensions [2]. This paper proposes that a critical juncture approach, as used in institutional analysis [3, 4], can be a useful addition to existing approaches to analyse the process of disaster recovery. In contrast to concepts like focusing events [5], the concept of critical junctures allows to gauge the impact of institutional legacies through longer timespans [4] and is, thereby, especially useful in the effort to better understand long-term trajectories of recovery policies. To assess this claim, a cursory literature review was conducted to examine the approaches used thus far by social scientists to research disaster recovery and the new critical juncture approach. Subsequently, a short illustrative case study was used to demonstrate some first applications of the critical juncture approach. This process-tracing analysis confirms that examining critical junctures helps to identify long-term trends in disaster recovery policies and how they relate to the institutional dimension of the process.