463
Political Economy of Disasters
Political Economy of Disasters
Wednesday, 13 July 2016: 14:15-15:45
Location: Hörsaal 4A KS (Neues Institutsgebäude (NIG))
RC39 Sociology of Disasters (host committee) Language: English
Political and economic systems provide the contexts in which disasters occur. These systems create or lessen economic, political and social inequalities thereby influencing vulnerabilities and exposure to risk. While loss trends from disasters associated with physical hazards such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, and cyclones have been clearly significantly and continuously on the rise (in economic terms), even more worrying is that the risk of loss of life and of assets in the future is growing far more rapidly.
This session recognizes the challenge for disaster risk management and reduction: if the inputs and even outputs are, as we claim, increasing in quantity and quality, why is the outcome and impact of our efforts not perceivable in terms of a reduction in overall risk and disaster losses?
There is a striking imbalance between how much has been done and achieved in managing and reducing existing risk (corrective practice) and how much has been done to reduce the accumulation of new risk through limiting and controlling the number of new assets and people located in hazardous locations and addressing potential future structural and social vulnerability (prospective practice). This session welcomes papers that address these concerns.
Session Organizer: