Urban Governance of Disaster Response Capacity: Institutional Models of Local Scalability

Abstract

Increasingly confronted with the acute risk of large-scale disaster, local governments across the globe are searching for effective and efficient strategies for scaling their disaster response capacity. Emergency management research has examined such strategies in various urban settings, but still suffers from the lack of proper theoretical frameworks for studying how institutionalized modes of governance condition local scalability in different national contexts. Building on the research tradition of urban governance, this article develops a conceptual framework for conducting institutional analysis of overarching values, norms and practices that shape the local scaling of disaster response capacity. It demonstrates the analytical value of the framework by applying it in an illustrative case study of disaster response systems in the three Scandinavian countries of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The framework proves useful for systematizing and discussing nuances within and across institutional contexts.