Institutional design

One of CRISMART's ongoing research projects focuses on institutional design and crisis management. Most countries have, to one extent or another, preparedness plans in place to meet major challenges to society, such as natural disasters, threats to critical infrastructure, infectious diseases and terrorism. Such preparedness can be organized in many different ways; in other words, institutional design of crisis management systems vary between countries. Differences can be found in everything from planning arrangements and preparedness ahead of crisis and mechanisms for taking action during a crisis, to accountability structures and learning after crises.

For example, the division of responsibility between the local, regional and national level- that is, the degree of centralization- varies from country to country. Also the extent of the more generic and overarching structures in respect to the more sector-specific structures can vary. Crisis management functions can also be markedly different depending on institutionalization- some systems are implicit and formed ad hoc, while others have a more explicit and formal structure. Another aspect of institutional design in the area crisis management is the roll of politicians. To what extent is political leadership at different levels expected to take charge of normative and/or operative leadership is crisis situations, and how much is left for experts or civil servants? There are also differences in terms of division of responsibilities between public and private, where some countries put more responsibility on the public sector, while others count more on private companies, NGOs and private persons in the context of crisis management.