Catastrophic Incentives
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Average rating5
15
Ratings1
Average rating5
Societies are vulnerable to any number of potential disasters: earthquakes, hurricanes, infectious diseases, terrorist attacks, and many others. Even though the dangers are often clear, there is a persistent pattern of inadequate preparation and a failure to learn from experience. Before disasters, institutions pay insufficient attention to risk; in the aftermath, even when the lack of preparation led to a flawed response, the focus shifts to patching holes instead of addressing the underlying problems. Examining twenty years of disasters from 9/11 to COVID-19, Jeff Schlegelmilch and Ellen Carlin show how flawed incentive structures make the world more vulnerable when catastrophe strikes. They explore how governments, the private sector, nonprofits, and academia behave before, during, and after crises, arguing that standard operational and business models have produced dysfunction. Catastrophic Incentives reveals troubling patterns about what does and does not matter to the institutions that are responsible for dealing with disasters. The short-termism of electoral politics and corporate decision making, the funding structure of nonprofits, and the institutional dynamics shaping academic research have all contributed to a failure to build resilience. Offering a comprehensive and incisive look at disaster governance, Catastrophic Incentives provides timely recommendations for reimagining systems and institutions so that they are better equipped to manage twenty-first-century threats.
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Thorough Examination Of The Field. This is a look at the history of disaster response (mostly in the US, and primarily over the last 50 some odd years) and the incentive structures of the various players in the field - and what those incentive structures lead to, for good and bad. It also has a few recommendations on how to move forward, as most books of this type do, though as with most all recommendations of most all books of this type, these very much come down to a Your Mileage May Vary situation. Though I do appreciate that the authors are realists and openly acknowledge that some would be easier to achieve than others, and some of the recommendations are about as close to "never going to happen" as anything ever truly gets. At 34% documentation, it is even on the high side of average in my experience - which is always a plus. Overall a solid and informative look at a lot of aspects of disaster response - and particularly disaster response coordination - that most even within the field probably aren't fully aware of, and for this alone it is absolutely essential reading for anyone who may ever experience a disaster. Which is everyone, everywhere. Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
