Leadership under stress : presidential roles in emergency and crisis management in the United States
By: Kapucu, Naim
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Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Philadelphia : Routledge, July 2009International Journal of Public Administration - IJPA 32, 9, p. 767-772Abstract: This paper attempts both to rate the quality and breadth of presidential involvement in emergency management, as well as to examine the possible reasons for the differing quality. Using three major factors for evaluation, it is possible to review the presidential records from the second half of the twentieth century to today, and derive broad categorical assessments using a holistic methodology. While some presidents learned from major catastrophes (focusing events) that occurred just before or during their administrations, other were hard-pressed simply to recover from especially disruptive or new disasters and failed to improve the system as a result. During his campaign President Obama had indicated a preference to elevate FEMA again, but it remains to be seen if he will have time to deal with this issue in the first half of his administration.
This paper attempts both to rate the quality and breadth of presidential involvement in emergency management, as well as to examine the possible reasons for the differing quality. Using three major factors for evaluation, it is possible to review the presidential records from the second half of the twentieth century to today, and derive broad categorical assessments using a holistic methodology. While some presidents learned from major catastrophes (focusing events) that occurred just before or during their administrations, other were hard-pressed simply to recover from especially disruptive or new disasters and failed to improve the system as a result. During his campaign President Obama had indicated a preference to elevate FEMA again, but it remains to be seen if he will have time to deal with this issue in the first half of his administration.
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