1.1 Introduction
Crises can disrupt and even destroy lives. Think of disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, and floods. Think of economic crises like episodes of hyperinflation or severe economic downturns. Think of political crises like riots and revolutions. These crises seem to be occurring with increasing frequency in small and large, rich and poor, isolated and connected communities around the globe. Indeed, every individual and community is vulnerable to crises. Whether or not an individual or community succeeds or fails, thrives or flounders, prospers or struggles will depend in part on how they respond to these crises.
Effectively responding to crises, however, can be a daunting challenge. Consider, for instance, Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans, Louisiana, and much of the Gulf Coast, in August of 2005. Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed resulted in over 1800 deaths and $100 billion in damages (Knabb et al. 2006). New Orleans suffered the worst damage. As much as 80 percent of the city was flooded, 70 percent of the housing units were damaged, and around 600,000 residents were still displaced a month after the storm.1 Recovering from a disaster of this scale and scope is extremely difficult for displaced disaster survivors. While the benefits of returning and rebuilding are necessarily uncertain, the costs of returning and rebuilding a damaged or destroyed home can be extremely costly. Returning and rebuilding only makes sense if key goods and services that they need to live are going to be available and other key people and institutions that they rely on also return and rebuild. Individuals within the community must assess the damage to their homes, determine if they are likely to have a place to work and socialize, and if they wish to return, must find ways to work with others from their community to rebuild. Business owners and government officials must figure out if they will have a community to serve and will need to make decisions about where and when to reopen their business or restart public services. In this scenario, the rational move for disaster survivors is to wait and see what others do before committing to a particular recovery strategy. Because of this situation where rebuilding in the wake of a disaster is only rational if others rebuild as well, Storr et al. (2015) and others have described post-disaster recovery as a collective action problem.
Similar challenges are faced by citizens and governments alike during post-war reconstruction, economic recessions, and other types of crises. Yet, we see individuals and communities rebounding from crises all the time. As John Stuart Mill ([1848] 1885, 94ā95) remarked, the āgreat rapidity with which countries recover from a state of devastationā is something of a marvel but is also quite common. Likewise, we see individuals rebounding from crises again and again. How do individuals and communities go about returning to normalcy and beginning again the mundane life of everyday affairs after a crisis? Arguably, effectively responding to crises often requires that the individuals affected find ways to work with one another. Effectively responding to crises also often requires mobilizing significant resources.
Not surprisingly, individuals and communities often turn to government in response to crises. In the wake of crises, governments seem like the only entities who have the resources to meaningfully help survivors and the capability to restore disrupted services or provide needed goods and services. National and supranational governmental organizations are often seen as being in the best position to identify the problems, understand the circumstances, provide resources, direct action, and coordinate among the various constituencies following a major crisis. Governments, however, can themselves be overwhelmed by crises, depending on their scale and scope. Moreover, government can sometimes be the cause of the crisis and some might not be well positioned to provide the solution to the crisis. In these circumstances, individuals and communities must depend on bottom-up solutions.
This volume examines an important aspect of responding to crises that is often overlooked by media and policymakersāthe potential and capabilities of bottom-up efforts. This volume provides an overview of the literature on bottom-up crisis responses, highlights the lessons learned from several studies of particular bottom-up crisis responses, and provides a framework for future research and policy discussions on the potential of individuals and their communities to participate in and drive their own crisis response efforts.
1.2 Why Bottom-Up Response and Recovery Efforts Matter
Due to the scale and scope of crisesāoften resulting in large-scale destruction and uncertainty at the community, state, and national levelāit is not surprising that there are consistent calls from citizens, the media, scholars, and policymakers for government involvement. Centralized government authority (either the federal government, other national governments, or supranational governmental organizations) is often viewed as necessary for leading and coordinating crisis response efforts in order to bring together and prioritize efforts from many constituencies and for providing the resources (such as funding, qualified personnel, infrastructure, and equipment) needed to respond effectively (see Pipa 2006; Tierney 2007; Thaler and Sunstein 2008; Springer 2009; Fakhruddin and Chivakidakarn 2014; Coppola 2015). Further, crises (such as natural disasters) can lead to communication system failures, can expose security vulnerabilities, and are often caused by and can exacerbate systemic environmental issues that seem beyond the ability of any individual to address. These complications only bolster the calls for government involvement.
It is increasingly difficult, however, to centrally or cohesively train for, mitigate against, and respond to the complicated circumstances caused by crises. To fully understand, coordinate, and respond to crises, central authorities (just like individuals and communities) must be able to (1) access information about the damage on the ground and resources available, (2) prioritize and initiate activities, and (3) adapt when circumstances change. There is a robust literature pointing to the challenges of a central authorityās ability to access and utilize dispersed knowledge and resources (see Mises [1920] 1990; Hayek 1945; Lavoie 1985a) and to adjust when errors or changes occur (see Kirzner 1985; Lavoie 1985b; Ikeda 2005). These challenges, arguably, are exacerbated in times of crises, when communication systems are hindered and information about the extent of the damage and individuals impacted may be uncertain or change dramatically over time. Indeed, after a crisis like a hurricane or earthquake, central authorities tend to face challenges identifying and assessing needs and coordinating resources in the immediate response. Government personnel can take days to weeks to arrive, to assess the situation, and begin to provide goods and services ...