Birkland Book Shows the Potential for Turning Disaster into Good Public PolicyBy Vinny Reda
Each year, natural and man-made disasters kill and injure thousands of people, decimate various forms of wildlife, and destroy billions of dollars of property. Yet disasters are also what Thomas A. Birkland of the Department of Public Administration & Policy and the Graduate School of Public Affairs calls "focusing events," which can cause citizens and politicians alike to work toward changing public policy, or at least to focus on a public problem.
Thomas A. Birkland
In After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events (Georgetown University Press) Birkland produces the first comprehensive analysis of those sudden calamities which in many cases have changed political agendas and ultimately law.
Studying four different types of disaster � earthquakes, hurricanes, oil spills, and nuclear accidents � Birkland examines where and when each of these events gains public attention and how they trigger political reactions.
The dynamics, he finds, vary significantly. An earthquake and a hurricane can cause equal amounts of damage, but because earthquakes are dealt with by people of science before they occur to a much greater degree, the impetus for policy change to mitigate their damage is much stronger. Hurricanes, scientifically dealt with mostly by meteorologists, and usually only after they occur, are left most immediately for politicians to focus upon � and then mostly in the areas of post-disaster clean-up and relief. "The hurricane domain contains no discernible advocacy coalition," he writes, "which results in a style of distributive policy that simply distributes federal largess after a disaster."
Yet in varying ways, incidents such as the 1971 San Fernando earthquake in California, 1969�s Hurricane Camille on the Gulf Coast, 1989�s Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and that same year�s Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, all were catalysts for change � sometimes enhancing building codes, or heightening awareness of land use, or leading to anti-pollution controls. And Birkland presents a theory of where and when these events will gain attention and trigger political reaction.
"The results show that, as in many of our studies of politics, the mechanisms by which focusing events influence politics are rather more complex, subtle and contingent that intuition would suggest," he writes. "For example, as students of the democratic process we might believe that an event that influences a great number of people would place greater pressure on elected officials to do something about a problem, compared with an event with an influence on fewer people. I find this not to be the case."
Bryan Jones of the University of Washington says that "Birkland has produced our first systematic study of the focusing events on public policy, and it is wonderful . . . This book should be read by democratic theorists as well as public policy scholars."
Birkland, who joined the Albany faculty in the Fall of 1995, says that "sudden and vivid events" have interested him intensely since the Exxon Valdez disaster because he grew up in Alaska, knew many people who worked on the clean-up, and understood the shock and heartbreak that had to accompany the tragedy for most Alaskans.
