Crises and Natural Disasters: a Review of Two Schools of Study Drawing on Australian Wildfire Experience

The connection between “schools” of study focusing on crises and on natural disasters is explored. After considering the rise of separate schools, the article notes significant attempts to integrate them and suggests that, while natural disasters and other big crises have much in common, there are still some important differences that need to be taken into account in designing relevant management systems. Drawing particularly on Australian wildfire experience, the article then looks more briefly at the question of political leadership in disaster situations, and at serious problems that often occur in the reporting of those situations.

Roger WettenhallEmail:

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Roger Wettenhall   is Professor of Public Administration Emeritus and Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Business and Government at the University of Canberra. He was Project Director and then Co-Chairman of the Working Group on Public Enterprise Management and the Public-Private Mix of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration from 1983 to 2001, was Editor of the Australian Journal of Public Administration from 1989 to 1995, and now chairs the Institute of Public Administration Australia/University of Canberra Public Administration Research Trust Fund.