Louise K. Comfort's Books

The Dynamics of Risk

Changing Technologies and Collective Action in Seismic Events

By: Louise K. Comfort

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The Dynamics of Risk

Changing Technologies and Collective Action in Seismic Events

By: Louise K. Comfort

Earthquakes are a huge global threat. In thirty-six countries, severe seismic risks threaten populations and their increasingly interdependent systems of transportation, communication, energy, and finance. In this important book, Louise Comfort provides an unprecedented examination of how twelve communities in nine countries responded to destructive earthquakes between 1999 and 2015. And many of the book’s lessons can also be applied to other large-scale risks. The Dynamics of Risk sets the global problem of seismic risk in the framework of complex adaptive systems to explore how the consequences of such events ripple across jurisdictions, communities, and organizations in complex societies, triggering unexpected alliances but also exposing social, economic, and legal gaps. The book assesses how the networks of organizations involved in response and recovery adapted and acted collectively after the twelve earthquakes it examines. It describes how advances in information technology enabled some communities to anticipate seismic risk better and to manage response and recovery operations more effectively, decreasing losses. Finally, the book shows why investing substantively in global information infrastructure would create shared awareness of seismic risk and make postdisaster relief more effective and less expensive. The result is a landmark study of how to improve the way we prepare for and respond to earthquakes and other disasters in our ever-more-complex world.

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Page Count

335

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691186022

ISBN 13

9780691186023

MANAGING CRISES

Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities

By: Uriel Rosenthal,Arjen Boin,Louise K. Comfort

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MANAGING CRISES

Threats, Dilemmas, Opportunities

By: Uriel Rosenthal,Arjen Boin,Louise K. Comfort

In this book, the editors, with 25 notable contributors, expand the knowledge of crisis management, focusing on case studies of high-profile events that have occurred in recent history. Part One of the text aims at theoretical development through empirical case studies and also postulates a crisis typology and charts specific theoretical and administrative challenges. The 'case bank,' which comprises the bulk of the book, is presented in four additional sections. The first deals with the development of crises and compares the infamous Watts riots with the 1992 L.A. riots. It also analyzes the fragmented and complex international environment that allowed the 'safe area' in Bosnia to be overrun by Bosnian Serbs in 1995. The final chapter chronicles the incredible human costs of mismanaged crisis in the Rwanda massacres in 1994. The second section explores the many decisional dilemmas that confront crisis managers. Cases include the fire at the Piper Alpha oil rig; the 1999 Turkish earthquakes; the Eindhoven, Holland plane crash; and crisis management of the Mad Cow epidemic disease in the U.K. The third section explores the long-term dimensions of crises and crisis management and particularly the development of national traumas such as the assassination of Sweden's Prime Minister Olaf Palme in 1986, the 1992 Amsterdam air crash, and the TWA flight 800 disaster in 1996. The final section shifts focus to future scenarios such as speculative information technology disasters, potentially devastating viral epidemics, deteriorating environmental and societal conditions in Russia, the southwest U.S. coming water shortage, and the outlook for Japan, one of the worldÂ’s most disaster-prone countries. Summarizing the research findings of the past decade, the authors describe patterns in the paths toward crises, the dilemmas and coping mechanisms that emerge during the thick of crisis, and, very importantly, the pathways that lead away from crisis.

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Page Count

367

Publisher

Charles C Thomas Publisher

Published Date

ISBN 10

0398083045

ISBN 13

9780398083045

MEGA-CRISES

Understanding the Prospects, Nature, Characteristics, and the Effects of Cataclysmic Events

By: Ira Helsloot,Arjen Boin,Brian Jacobs,Louise K. Comfort

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MEGA-CRISES

Understanding the Prospects, Nature, Characteristics, and the Effects of Cataclysmic Events

By: Ira Helsloot,Arjen Boin,Brian Jacobs,Louise K. Comfort

We live in turbulent times with continents and nations facing ever-heightening risks such as natural disasters, intense and protracted conflicts, terrorism, corporate crises, cyber threats to infrastructures and mega-events. We are witnessing the rise of mega-crises and a new class of adversity with many unknowns. The prospect of mega-crises presents professionals and students in the field of crisis management with four major tasks. First, they should engage in “deep thinking” about the causes of the increasing occurrence of mega-crises. Second, they should identify and work through the dominant trends which complicate contemporary crisis management. Third, they should upgrade institutional crisis management capacity. Fourth, they should improve societal resilience since no institutional complex can mitigate or manage these mega-crisis on its own. This book is divided into four primary parts, each of which looks at one facet of mega-crises. Part I focuses on the concept of a mega-crisis and mega-crisis management; Part II examines crisis management of mega-natural disasters; Part III evaluates crisis management of man-made mega-crises; and Part IV identifies mega-threats and vulnerabilities. Additional major topics include Hurricane Katrina; Hurricane Gustav; the London Bombings; the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks of July 7, 2005; corporate meltdowns; the subprime crisis; the Olympic Games; electricity grids; global climate change; the Dutch Delta; risks to food security; and mega-crises and the Internet. This comprehensive text will provide practitioners and academics with the results of an across-the-board research effort in the prospects, nature, characteristics, and the effects of mega-crises.

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Page Count

389

Publisher

Charles C Thomas Publisher

Published Date

ISBN 10

0398086834

ISBN 13

9780398086831

Education Policy and Evaluation

A Context for Change

By: Louise K. Comfort

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Education Policy and Evaluation

A Context for Change

By: Louise K. Comfort

Education Policy and Evaluation: A Context for Change offers one perspective in defining the problems of public policy in education and some suggestions for redirection. Based on research conducted at five major school districts in California, this book reveals children's expectations for public education, as well as the performance of public schools and their vision for the future. The areas of strength and weakness in educational policy are discussed, along with the needs for revision in educational policy and performance. Comprised of seven chapters, this book begins with an assessment of serious failure in public education, citing the proliferation of programs, personnel and administrative structures in public education without adequate design, coordination, implementation, evaluation, or adaptation to meet basic educational needs or to solve the complex problems implicit in the delivery of public educational services. Subsequent chapters focus on the concept of social innovation and the role of the federal government as an agent of educational change; the tension between structure and process in educational policy; the problem of specification in the implementation of educational policy; and evaluation as an instrument for educational change. This monograph will be of interest to students, parents, educators, community leaders, legislators, scholars, school administrators, and educational policymakers.

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Page Count

214

Publisher

Elsevier

Published Date

ISBN 10

1483153541

ISBN 13

9781483153544

Book's by Louise K. Comfort

The Dynamics of Risk

The Dynamics of Risk

MANAGING CRISES

MANAGING CRISES

MEGA-CRISES

MEGA-CRISES

Education Policy and Evaluation

Education Policy and Evaluation

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