Grass-Root Organisations, Intergovernmental Collaboration, and Emergency Preparedness: An Institutional Collective Action Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of grass-root emergency response groups in emergency preparedness. Consistent with the Institutional Collective Action framework, we highlight key constraints associated with local government strategies of mutual resource exchange and barriers to intergovernmental collaboration. We examine local governments’ emergency preparedness using survey data collected in the North Central Texas region. We employed a simple OLS analysis to determine mutual exchange and Poisson estimations on the likelihood of local governments receiving and providing external assistance. Findings showed that the presence of grass-root organisations in a jurisdiction is associated with emergency preparedness, highlighting the importance of norms of volunteerism. Local political institutions and participation in federally funded programmes also have an effect on local government decisions.

Key Words:

• Intergovernmental collaboration
• emergency preparedness
• institutional collective action

Notes

1. A total number of 126 responders (from a total of 259) consisted of emergency managers and first responders from the municipal and county governments, regional administrators, state, and federal liaison officers. We limit our final analysis to include local governments (n = 82).

2. A list of Community Emergency Response Teams within 5 miles was retrieved online at http://www.citizencorps.fema.gov/cc/listCert.do.

3. The overall model is statistically significant (F-value = 44.04, Prob. <.00). The adjusted R-squared is 0.30, indicating that the explanatory variables account for about a third of the total variability in the outcome variable. We also check for heteroscedasticity and multicollinearity and find no serious violation. The average VIF is 1.54. The Breusch–Pagan/Cook–Weisberg test for heteroscedasticity Chi-square (1) = 2.23; Prob. > Chi-square = .135.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partly funded by the Paul A. Volcker Junior Scholar Research Grant Award.

Notes on contributors

Simon A. Andrew

Simon A. Andrew is Associate Professor of Public Administration and PhD programme coordinator at the University of North Texas. His research centres on organisational resiliency in Thailand, and he is currently studying inter-organisational collaboration, disaster recovery and response, and issues related to metropolitan governance. His research has appeared in the American Review of Public Administration, Public Management Review, Natural Hazard Review, Disasters, Urban Affairs Review, and Urban Studies.

Kyujin Jung

Kyujin Jung is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Public Administration at the University of North Texas. His research focuses on inter-organisational arrangements, emergency management, and social network analysis.

Xiangyu Li

Dr. Xiangyu Li is an assistant professor and the Emergency Management Administration Program Director in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, West Texas A&M University. Dr. Li’s fields of research are mass evacuation and intergovernmental relationships. He recently published an article discussing the effects of government hierarchy in emergency management capacity and another article reviewing rescaling in China’s government policymaking.